Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov confirmed Friday a meeting with the United States to negotiate a new agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in late November or the first week of December.
Riyabkov specified that the bilateral consultative commission will be held in the capital of Egypt, Cairo, where the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) is currently being held, state news agency TASS reported.
«I will not deny that the issue of inspections will be the topic of discussion at the meeting, but this is not the only one and I would even say it is not the main topic. During the past time, we have accumulated a lot of issues that it is obligatory to consider with the Americans,» he explained.
The START treaty was signed in 1991 by the then leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. In April 2010, the agreement was replaced by the New START treaty, signed by then U.S. and Russian Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, respectively.
The agreement, which is currently in force due to an extension signed in 2021, expires in 2026. U.S. President Joe Biden has expressed his willingness to negotiate a new arms control framework to replace the current pact with Moscow.
