BERLIN—American and Russian negotiators have concluded a round of nuclear arms control talks in Vienna, aimed at producing a new agreement to replace the New START treaty that expires in February—the last remaining pact constraining the arsenals of the world’s two major nuclear powers.
U.S. negotiator Marshall Billingslea told reporters on June 23 that a day of high-level “marathon discussions” ended late Monday night and had been productive enough to conclude with the establishment of several technical working groups to delve deeper into the issues with the idea of paving the way for a second round of talks by late July or early August.
“We both agreed at the termination of our talks that the strategic environment has changed significantly since the New START treaty was signed,” he told reporters. “We can all remember back 10 years ago, the world is, in fact, a radically different place.”
New START, signed in 2010, imposes limits on the number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads and launchers.
It became the last nuclear arms pact between the two nations after the United States last year scrapped the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, a Cold War-era agreement that both sides had repeatedly accused the other of violating.
The INF treaty was also criticized because it did not cover China or missile technology that did not exist a generation ago.
New START can be extended by five years by mutual consent.
Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister who led his country’s delegation in Vienna, told reporters in Moscow that he had reiterated the position that it should be.
“We presented our view and will keep doing so,” Ryabkov told the Interfax agency. “We are running out of time.”