WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The United States and Russia are closing in on a deal to observe the New START nuclear arms control treaty beyond its expiration on Thursday, Axios reported, citing three sources familiar with the talks.
The New START treaty, which set limits on each side’s missiles, launchers and strategic warheads, is the last in a series of nuclear agreements dating back more than half a century to the Cold War.
Negotiations had been taking place over the past 24 hours in Abu Dhabi but an agreement had not been reached, Axios said, citing an additional source.
The White House had no immediate comment on the report, which followed a series of other developments in relations between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
The U.S. military’s European Command said on Thursday the U.S. and Russia had agreed in Abu Dhabi to resume a high-level military-to-military dialogue.
Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said peace talks with Russia, backed by the U.S., would continue in the near future after negotiators ended a second round of discussions in Abu Dhabi.
The Axios report on New START said it was unclear whether the agreement to observe the treaty’s terms for an additional period of time, possibly six months, would be enshrined in any formal way.
KREMLIN SEEKS ‘CONSTRUCTIVE REPLIES’
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday Russia was still ready to engage in dialogue with the U.S. if Washington responded constructively to a proposal by Moscow to keep abiding by the limits of the expiring New START nuclear treaty.
“Listen, if there are any constructive replies, of course we will conduct a dialogue,” Peskov told reporters.
The New START treaty signed in 2010 allowed one single extension, which was agreed by former President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin for five years. Any new extension would require an executive decision to voluntarily extend the limits of the treaty.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, wants China brought into a nuclear reduction deal.
Beijing has so far declined negotiations with Moscow and Washington as it has a fraction of their warhead numbers – an estimated 600, compared to around 4,000 each for Russia and the U.S.
The White House said this week that Trump would decide the way forward on nuclear arms control, which he would “clarify on his own timeline” but gave no further details.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Andrea Shalal and Jonathan Landay in Washington; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Timothy Heritage)
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