Bellona nuclear digest. March 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: May 11, 2009
News
Sergey Lavrov praised President Barack Obama’s administration for taking a constructive stance in talks with Russia, adding that diplomats from both nations are now working on detailed platforms on arms control, Russian news agencies reported.
Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will discuss the issue when they meet in Moscow on July 6-8 and give directives on how to proceed, Lavrov said.
Lavrov said preliminary contacts have shown that "there is a good chance to bring our positions closer and reach agreements." He added, "The U.S. approach seems very constructive to me."
Enacting large slashes in the nuclear arms stockpiles of both counties has been a signature initiative of the Obama Administration, and much of the international clout the young presidency will yield will be determined by the talks.
Lavrov spoke to Russian reporters after returning from a visit to the United States where he held talks with Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama and Medvedev agreed during their meeting in London last month to fast-track negotiations on an agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expires in December.
"We hope that by the year’s end we will be able to negotiate a mutually acceptable text of a new treaty, although we are pressed by time," Lavrov said.
He said Russia would like a new deal to count all nuclear warheads, including those in storage. But he signaled that there is a room for compromise, adding that Moscow is ready to listen to the U.S. arguments to the contrary.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has told the United Nations atomic energy watchdog that Russia plans to restart Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently occupied by Russian troops and technicians, fueling worries about a serious nuclear accident on the front lines of a grinding military conflict.
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Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.