Medvedev lifts nuclear arms deal hopes

Published on Saturday 7 November 2009 19:03

DMITRY Medvedev said yesterday he expected to sign a major new nuclear arms deal with America by the end of the year.

The Russian president said talks were going quickly with the US but other members of the nuclear club, including the UK, France and China, must now join disarmament efforts.

Medvedev said: "We have every chance to agree on a new treaty, determine new (weapons] levels and control measures and sign a legally obliging document in the end of the year."

Moscow and Washington are negotiating a successor deal to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expires on 5 December. Efforts to slash American and Russian nuclear arsenals have been a major part of US president Barack Obama's push to "reset" relations with Russia, which became tense under the previous administration.

Russian and US diplomats are set to launch another round of negotiations in Geneva tomorrow.

Medvedev made his remarks in a wide-ranging interview with a German news magazine released yesterday. He made a series of noises that will be appreciated in the West, including a heavy hint that Russia will back sanctions against Iran if the Islamic Republic fails to accept a deal designed to prevent it developing nuclear weapons.

While speaking optimistically on a new US-Russian arms deal, Medvedev sounded less upbeat about the prospect of the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

Obama and Medvedev both said last April they were committed to the eventual goal of a nuclear-free world.

Medvedev told De Spiegel that other nuclear powers have been reluctant to join in disarmament efforts.

"A nuclear-free world is our shared ideal for which we must aspire, but a road to that is difficult," he said. "It takes not just the United States and Russia renouncing nuclear weapons, but other countries as well."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also signalled that he would be willing to decommission one of Britain's four Trident submarines as part of multilateral arms talks.

Medvedev appeared to contradict his prime minister and predecessor as president, Vladimir Putin, on Iran.

Putin has warned that the threat of sanctions could thwart talks with Iran.

Medvedev, however, in his interview said it would be better to avoid sanctions, but they couldn't be excluded if there was no progress in the talks.

Russia's communist party, meanwhile, yesterday denounced powerful Putin while cautiously praising Medvedev.

The Communists, who ruled Russia for 74 years, urged Medvedev to come out of the shadow of his premier as they marked the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.