Russia postpones nuclear arms control negotiations with US
Aggressor country postponed talks with the US on nuclear weapons inspection (Photo:Maxim Shemetov / Reuters)
Russia has postponed nuclear arms control negotiations with the United States that were supposed to begin in Egypt, CNN reported on Nov. 28, citing a U.S. State Department official.
A State Department spokesman stated the United States and Russia were supposed to hold a New START Treaty’s Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) meeting in Cairo. At the 11th hour, Moscow unilaterally postponed the meeting and "said that it would propose new dates."
The State Department said that Washington is ready to postpone the talks to make sure they take place as quickly as possible, as the resumption of inspections of nuclear weapons facilities is a priority to “maintain the treaty as an instrument of stability.”
According to CNN, the New START treaty places limits on the number of deployed intercontinental nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia can have. Washington and Moscow would conduct inspections of each other's nuclear facilities, which didn’t take place since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The administrations of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden renewed the New START treaty by five years in 2021. Bloomberg reported that the United States is offering Russia to renegotiate the treaty until 2026, and to involve China as a third party.
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