US agrees to extend major arms treaty, Russia says

Russia says the United States has agreed to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last bilateral agreement verifiably and transparently limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, which the former US administration was unwilling to extend.

“In the nearest days, the parties will complete the necessary procedures that will ensure further functioning” of the treaty, the Kremlin said in a statement on Tuesday, after US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the issue during a phone conversation earlier in the day.

The Kremlin said Presidents Putin and Biden had “expressed satisfaction” with the exchange of notes on reaching an agreement on the extension of the New START.

It further said that Putin had told Biden that “the normalization of relations between Russia and the United States would meet the interests of both countries” as well as the entire world due to their influence on global security and stability.

The White House did not immediately confirm that an agreement had been reached. But it said the two sides had agreed to work to complete the extension of the arms control treaty before it expires in early February.

“They discussed both countries’ willingness to extend New START for five years, agreeing to have their teams work urgently to complete the extension by Feb. 5,” the White House said. “They also agreed to explore strategic stability discussions on a range of arms control and emerging security issues.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also told reporters that the two leaders discussed an extension of the treaty as well as other bilateral issues.

“[President Biden] called President Putin this afternoon with the intention of discussing our willingness to extend New START for five years,” Psaki said.

Global security will be put in jeopardy if New START treaty with US not renewed: Putin warns

The Russian president has warned that if the US does not agree to renew the new START treaty with Russia, a new arms race will begin.

Immediately after the call, Putin submitted a draft bill on the treaty’s extension to Russia’s parliament for ratification.

The pact’s extension does not require congressional approval in the United States, but Russian legislators must ratify the move.

“Both houses of parliament will not lose a single minute to extend the treaty,” said Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Committee for International Relations in the Russian parliament’s upper house.

“I hope that we will be in time, because no further plenary sessions are planned until February 5,” he added.

President Putin had already announced his country’s readiness “to immediately, as soon as possible, right before the end of this year, without any preconditions, to extend the New START treaty.”

The Russian leader had previously warned that nothing would hold back another arms race if the arms control treaty with the United States was not renewed.

Putin has long sought an unconditional five-year extension of the treaty, but the administration of former president Donald Trump wanted to presumably strengthen verification provisions and broaden the treaty to cover other Russian arsenals, including conventional weaponry.

Biden seeks 5-year extension of New START arms treaty with Russia: Sources

US President Joe Biden will seek a five-year extension to the New START arms control treaty with Russia, sources say.

The US and Russia signed the New START in 2010 and agreed to reduce the number of their strategic nuclear missiles by half and restrict the number of their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550.

The New START can be extended for another five years, beyond its expiry date on February 5, 2021, by mutual agreement.

Trump had maligned the treaty early in his presidency as “one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration.”

In 2019, Trump also withdrew his country from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which had been signed between Washington and Moscow in 1987. The landmark treaty had banned all land-based missiles with a range up to 5,500 kilometers.

Those withdrawals fit a pattern under the Trump presidency of unilaterally pulling out of international accords.

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