Russian FM denies alleged deadline slip for new START treaty

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday denied reports that Russia and the United States may miss the Dec. 5 deadline for replacing the expiring Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Xinhua reported.
   "The document will be signed as soon as it is drawn up, with the dates set by the two presidents taken into account," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in Minsk.
   START-1, signed in 1991 a few months before the end of the Soviet Union,obliges both sides to reduce their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and delivery vehicles to 1,600.
   Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama agreed at a July summit in Moscow on the outline of the new arms cuts treaty to replace the pact, slashing their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.
   Foreign Ministry Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said the same day at a press briefing that negotiators from both countries were focusing on "looking for mutually acceptable compromises and achieving final formulations by December 5."
   Russia and the U.S. "have, in effect, got into the homestretch" in the Geneva-based talks, "but there remain fundamental problems to be solved," he said.
   Nesterenko also said no intermediary documents would be signed between the two countries before they signed the new START treaty.
   Interfax retracted without any specifications an earlier story citing an unnamed source, who said that Russia and the United States were unlikely to sign a new START treaty before Dec. 5.
   The Foreign Ministry also published a statement on its website on Friday, saying that it has destroyed 45 percent of its chemical weapon stocks.
   "On November 26, the Russian Federation completed the destruction of 17,998.205 tons, or 45.03 percent of its chemical weapon stocks," as part of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the statement said.