SAINT PETERSBURG: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia was prepared to drop a nuclear weapons agreement treaty with the US and warned of “global catastrophe” if Washington keeps dismantling a global arms control regime.
Speaking to heads of global news agencies at an economic forum in the city of Saint Petersburg, Putin said Washington showed no genuine interest in conducting talks on extending the New START treaty which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits.
“If no-one feels like extending the agreement — New START — well, we won’t do it then,” Putin said.
“We have said a hundred times that we are ready (to extend it),” Putin said.
“There is no formal negotiating process.”
The treaty was signed by US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Prague in 2010. It expires in 2021.
Together with another agreement known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, New START is considered a centrepiece of superpower arms control.
Putin accused Washington of eroding the global arms control regime by pulling out of the bilateral Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and then dropping out of the INF treaty in February.
Moscow suspended participation in the INF treaty in March after Washington announced it would ditch the key agreement for alleged Russian violations of the terms.
Putin said the potential implications of letting New START treaty expire would be huge, suggesting its demise could fuel a nuclear arms race. — AFP
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