The Obama administration believes senators could vote by a significant margin in favor of ratifying a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said yesterday (see
GSN, Oct. 5).
(Oct. 6) - U.S. B-52H strategic bomber jet engines, shown in 2007 at Barksdale Air Force Base, La. The Obama administration hopes U.S. senators will vote overwhelmingly to ratify a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, the pact's top U.S. negotiator said yesterday (Paul Richards/Getty Images). President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April signed "New START," which requires their nations to each cut their deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 warheads, down from the maximum of 2,200 allowed by 2012 under an earlier agreement. They must both also restrict their active nuclear delivery vehicles to 700, with another 100 platforms allowed in reserve.
The pact is awaiting a ratification vote in the Senate, where the 67 votes required for passage must include at least eight Republicans in this Congress.
The treaty's prospects for approval are "good" during the congressional session following November's midterm elections, the Associated Press quoted Gottemoeller as saying.
"We are hoping that we will have the same kind of vote which was the vote for the [1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty], 95-0 against," said Gottemoeller, the top U.S. negotiator of the new agreement. "We're looking for that kind of vote this time around as well."
Addressing whether the treaty could be ratified in 2010, she said, "Absolutely, yes." Obama wants to have the pact "ratified and on its way to entering into force by the end of this year," Gottemoeller said.
Speaking yesterday to the U.N. General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee, Gottemoeller called for movement on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the resumption of negotiations aimed at producing a
fissile material cutoff treaty (see
GSN, Sept. 27; Edith Lederer, Associated Press/
Washington Post, Oct. 5).
The international Conference on Disarmament in Geveva, Switzerland, in 2009 broke a deadlock that had lasted for more than 10 years, agreeing to a work plan that would address four issues: nuclear disarmament, a fissile material cutoff pact, the prohibition of space-based weapons, and an agreement by nuclear-armed states not to use their strategic weapons against nations that do not possess such armaments. Pakistan initially endorsed the plan, but later withdrew its consent and demanded further consideration of the program. Decisions at the conference are made by consensus.
"I have to tell you that I expressed some disappointment at the fact that the Conference on Disarmament over the last years has been less energetic in terms of pursuing its overall agenda," Agence France-Presse quoted Gottemoeller as saying after U.N. talks failed to break the impasse.
"We will do everything so that we can have talks go forward -- there is no reason to stand still," she added.
"We will definitely continue to press" for a fissile material pact, she said. "We regard this delay as unwarranted and out of step with the expectations of the wide majority of states seated here today" (Agence France-Presse/
Google News, Oct. 5).
In a cautionary note targeting Pakistan, Gottemoeller said governments would consider other possible means for advancing disarmament negotiations if the deadlock in Geneva persisted, AP reported.
The United States and other nations would together consider other possible avenues for advancing arms control dialogue, she said without elaborating (Lederer, Associated Press).
Meanwhile, Russia yesterday pressed all nuclear-armed nations to join future arms reduction negotiations with Moscow and Washington, Interfax reported.
"The reduction in the gap in the size of the arsenals of our countries, and other [recognized nuclear-weapon states], is insistently raising the issue of the gradual accession of other countries having nuclear arsenals to the Russian-American disarmament efforts," Russian Foreign Ministry official Anatoly Antonov, the top Russian negotiator of "New START," told the General Assembly panel.
The five recognized nuclear powers are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Continued nuclear disarmament "will be simply impossible at a certain stage" without the participation of countries that possess such weapons outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Antonov said. Those known or suspected nuclear-armed states are India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan (see related
GSN story, today).
Arsenal reductions mandated by "New START" would make "further deep cuts impossible without due account for all other processes taking place in the sphere of international security," Antonov said.
Other potential obstacles to nuclear disarmament include "the formation of regional missile defense systems without due account for the security of neighboring countries, the prospect of the appearance of arms in space, the plans of developing strategic carriers with conventional warheads, the unilateral buildup of the potential of strategic missile defense, the growing imbalance in the sphere of conventional armaments [and] the deployment of nuclear weapons in the territories of non-nuclear states," he said (see
GSN, Sept. 22; Interfax, Oct. 5).
