US and Russia hold arms control talks in Geneva
Senior officials from Russia and the United States are meeting at the US diplomatic mission in Geneva on Wednesday to initiate arms control talks dubbed “strategic stability” with a focus on risk reduction.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and her counterpart, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, are leading their respective delegations.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman leads the US delegation in Geneva
The talks come after US President Joe Biden met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva for a little over three hours last month. Wednesday’s talks are the first demonstrable concrete outcome from that summit between the two leaders.
On the table: arms control and risk reduction
While the exact scope of Wednesday’s talks has not been made public, analysts and both countries view them as the start of a process.
The US and Russia are in possession of roughly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
In Geneva last month, Biden and Putin agreed to launch these bilateral talks on what is being termed “strategic stability” by both sides to “lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”
Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior research fellow at the Center for Advanced American Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told reporters in Geneva: “Russia still has concerns with US modification of heavy bombers and launchers to launch ballistic missiles, and that’s been there for a while now.”
The Biden administration, on the other hand, has voiced concerns over Russia engaging unilaterally in low-yield nuclear testing, in violation of a nuclear testing moratorium.
In January, the US and Russia approved a 5-year extension of the New START nuclear arms control treaty just days before it was set to expire. The treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers both sides can deploy.
Low expectations but mutual understanding
The US State Department said: “Through this dialogue, we seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said to not expect too much going into talks with the US over arms control
On Tuesday, Ryabkov told Russian news agencies talks with the US would give Moscow the chance to “understand how serious the mindset of our US colleagues is in terms of establishing a concentrated, energetic dialogue in strategic stability.”
Also on Tuesday, Biden said Putin has “a real problem, he is sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and nothing else,” adding, “He knows he is in real trouble, which makes him even more dangerous in my view.”
The talks are expected to last most of Wednesday.
ar/nm (AFP, Reuters)
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/us-and-russia-hold-arms-control-talks-in-geneva/a-58671440?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf