US, Russia must keep nuclear treaty: US senator

Moscow, Aug 28: Russia and the United States will be making a mistake if they allow the START nuclear arms reduction treaty to lapse in 2009, US Senator Richard Lugar, a leading disarmament advocate, said yesterday.

The treaty, signed in 1991, set ceilings on the size of the Russian and US nuclear arsenals and became a symbol of the end of the Cold War. Washington has indicated it will not extend it in 2009 but wants to replace it with a more up-to-date pact.

Sen. Lugar said that without this treaty there would be no mechanism for each side to verify the other in observing arms control treaties, at a time of weakening trust between Moscow and Washington.

''The United States and Russia must extend the START Treaty's verification and transparency elements, which will expire in 2009,'' Lugar told a conference of arms control experts in Moscow.

''I am concerned by reports that US-Russian negotiations do not include discussions of a legally-binding treaty or the continuation of a formal verification regime.

''The current Russian-American relationship is complicated enough without introducing more elements of uncertainty into the nuclear relationship,'' Lugar said.

Russia has warned it may return to its Cold War stance of aiming its nuclear missiles at targets in Europe if Washington goes ahead with its plan for a missile defence shield in Europe.

In another sign of U.S.-Russian tensions, Moscow has suspended its compliance with a conventional arms treaty, citing what it says is a NATO arms build-up in eastern Europe.

Sen. Lugar and former US Senator Sam Nunn were the authors of a cooperation programme through which the United States has been working with Russia for the past 15 years to destroy their stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

Reuters
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