• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

White House says Gen. Jones' arms talks in Moscow fruitful

RIA Novosti

31/10/200905:08

MOSCOW, October 31 (RIA Novosti) - Washington positively assesses recent visit of the U.S. president's national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, to Moscow for another round of talks on a new strategic arms reduction treaty, the White House spokesman said.

"We think the talks are progressing as we had hoped for a treaty that expires the 5th of December," Robert Gibbs told a daily press briefing commenting on the Jones' visit to Russia.

Moscow earlier also outlined its satisfaction with the significant progress in the talks on the new treaty.

The previous round of talks took place in Geneva two weeks ago.

The outlines of the new pact were agreed during the U.S. and Russian presidents' summit in Moscow in July and include cutting their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.

START 1 obliges the countries to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.