Kremlin: New START Treaty talks should consider nuclear arsenals of UK, France
Talks on reducing strategic nuclear weapons must first be conducted between Russia and the U.S., but the arsenals of Britain and France will ultimately have to be included in negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Peskov’s remarks come amid a Kremlin proposal to the U.S. this month to voluntarily maintain for a year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in their New START arms control treaty once it expires next year if the U.S. does the same.
“Of course the negotiations should be started at the bilateral level. After all, the START Treaty is a bilateral document. But in the future, it will not be possible to abstract ourselves from these arsenals. Especially since these arsenals are part of the overall problem of global European security and strategic stability,” Peskov told TASS news agency.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty good,” but the issue was up to U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he wants to open denuclearisation talks with Russia and China.
It is noteworthy that Russia and the U.S. have by far the biggest nuclear arsenals in the world. New START caps the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and the number of delivery vehicles – missiles, submarines and bomber planes – at 700 on each side.
Meanwhile, France and Britain, which were never a party to New START or its precursor treaties, have much smaller arsenals numbering between 250 and 300 warheads each.
