New START Near “Finish Line,” Timing Unclear

Although details still remain to be worked out, Russia and the United States have reached an “agreement in principle” on the START follow-on treaty, administration officials and press reports said last month, Tom Collina, Research Director of the Ploughshares Fund grantee Arms Control Association reports.  President Barack Obama called Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Feb. 24 and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Feb. 23 and “encouraged Russia to continue to move ahead, push hard so we can reach an agreement in the next couple of weeks” according to the Department of State.

“We are at the end game, we see the finish line of negotiations in the START follow-on treaty,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen O. Tauscher told a conference on nuclear deterrence near Washington Feb. 17. No new timeline has been set, she said. Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, who addressed the conference after Tauscher, said, “Mind you, the closer you come to the endgame, the bigger each and every small detail becomes.”