Russia and the United States started the first round of full-format talks on a new strategic arms reduction treaty?in Moscow?on Tuesday, local media reported.
The US delegation is led by US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, and the Russian side is headed by Anatoly Antonov, director of the security and disarmament department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Russia expects "a fruitful exchange of views and approaches" which allows the two countries to come to "mutually acceptable agreements", Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
The two-day negotiations "will not be just an exchange of opinions, but a transition to substantive discussion of the future treaty, with the parties putting forward particular proposals," a source with the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I), which is due to expire in December, places a limit of 6,000 strategic or long-range nuclear warheads on each side. The subsequent Moscow treaty calls for reducing nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama, at their first meeting in London in early April, agreed to negotiate a replacement for START I by the end of the year.
(Xinhua News Agency May 19, 2009)
