The countries should work out a replacement to the New START treaty “as soon as possible,” a UN official says
UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation between Britain and Russia. © AP / Mary Altaffer
Russia and the United States need to resume talks on replacing the landmark New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, a senior United Nations official said on Friday.
Speaking at the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, was asked when she thinks Moscow and Washington should start negotiating a potential successor to New START.
“I think as soon as possible,” she said, stressing that the treaty, which sets limits on the US and Russian nuclear arsenals, must be replaced before the 2026 expiry date.
“Otherwise, the world will have no restraints, and we’re saying that this will be a very dangerous situation,” Nakamitsu added.
Read more
The UN believes that both Russia and the US have no objections to negotiating a successor to New START. “We’ve been calling on both parties to resume their engagement as soon as possible,” the official noted.
The UN official’s comments come after Andrey Belousov, the deputy Russian representative to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva, revealed on Thursday that US-Russia contacts on strategic arms reduction have not been interrupted.
However, US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins said further discussions on the New START treaty were not yet taking place.
“Discussions between the US and Russia about the next steps in relation to the New START treaty are not happening right now because of the situation we’re dealing with. And these talks will continue in the future when the situation for that is right,” she noted.
In early August, US President Joe Biden claimed that Washington was ready to negotiate “a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires.” Following this statement, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that no proposals on the matter had been made by the US.
