Russia, U.S. officials hold consultations paving way for summit

by Vladimir Isachenkov
The Associated Press

MOSCOW - U.S. and Russian negotiators are working "under pressure" to solve their differences and make a nuclear arms deal ready by a presidential summit in May but remain at odds about Russian cooperation with Iran, a senior U.S. diplomat said yesterday.

U.S. and Russian negotiators face "a number of difficult issues, questions of how exactly to account for the offensive strategic warheads, measures of transparency, verification," U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said after two days of talks with Russian officials in Moscow.

President Bush has pledged to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, and Russia's Vladimir Putin has said Russia could go as low as 1,500 warheads from the current 6,000 the United States and Russia each are permitted by the START I treaty.

Although Bush initially favored an informal deal, he has agreed to Russia's push for a legally binding agreement to "demonstrate both here in Russia and internationally the extent of the maturation of the U.S.-Russian relationship," Bolton said at a news conference.

"At the moment I don't see any insuperable obstacles to achieving an agreement, although there are a number of serious issues that still require pretty detailed discussion," Bolton said.

Russian officials, in particular, strongly have protested the Pentagon's intention to stockpile the decommissioned nuclear warheads rather than destroy them.

"Real and irreversible liquidation of nuclear weapons will show the world community how reliable and serious the course for nuclear disarmament is," Putin's military adviser Igor Sergeyev said yesterday, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.

Bolton said, however, the United States wants to have an "upward flexibility in the offensive weapons area should the international geostrategic situation change."