Azerbaijan, Baku, May 8 / Trend , E.Tariverdiyeva/
Signing a new treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms (SOA) between the United States and Russia is an important step to improve bilateral relations and would not entail an increase in threats from other countries with nuclear capabilities.
"Arms control efforts of Russia and the U.S. are a good sign in relations because they signal that neither side is interested in a hostile competition," Henry Hale, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University Washington, said.
Russian Foreign Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet in Washington on Thursday to discuss the preparation of a new treaty to replace the expiring Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms (SOA) in 2009, Russian Foreign Ministry North America Department director Igor Neverov told RIA Novosti.
He confirmed that the first round of Russian-American consultations on designing of the new treaty will be held on the level of experts in Roma this week.
Moscow hopes agree principal issues of the new document during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Russia in July.
Russian Vice Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russia was ready to launch talks on the new context of the Agreement on control over strategic Offensive Arms at a security conference in Munich. "The talks will be commenced shortly and actively, as soon as U.S. will be ready," Ivanov added.
Russian media informed about the new designed agreement on SOA-2 in December 2008-January 2009. Nevertheless, no detailed information has been made. The SOA-2 agreement may be included into the agenda of discussions during Abama's visit to Russia.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to reduce nuclear weapons as one of the main objectives of his presidency, and promised to resume talks with Russia to replace the SOA-1 treaty, signed in 1991. Under this treaty, both countries should reduce their nuclear stockpiles from about 10,000 to 5,000 units on each side.
Joint signing of the new treaty on armament is a positive trend in the relationship between Moscow and Washington, experts said.
"In the current environment, arms reduction negotiations can also help create greater trust and mutual understanding between the two sides since this is one area where the interests of the two countries are more or less in alignment," Hale told Trend .
They also reduce the risks of a nuclear accident by reducing or limiting the numbers of warheads, Hale said.
One of the leading Russian experts for the U.S. Anatoli Utkin said that improvement of relationships with U.S. is complimentary for Russia. "The greatest power of modernity is holding unique discussions with us that do not relate to anyone," Utkin, director of the U.S. and Canada International Research Institute, told Trend .
Utkin said new project on arms reductions offered by the U.S. is beneficial for Russia. Russia faces dilemma - either to begin to spend money to create this missile amid crisis and employment or reduce potential, the expert said.
Expert and researcher at American Progress Andrew Grotto said both countries have a mutual interest in eliminating Cold War-era weapons. Arms control negotiations are an important vehicle for political engagement, which could lead to improvements in other areas of the U.S.-Russian relationship, expert said.
"Of course, nuclear weapons are just one element of the U.S.-Russian relationship, so progress in this sphere does not guarantee progress in other spheres," expert on nuclear weapon Grotto wrote to Trend in an email.
Experts said new agreement does not include a threat of attack by countries that are expanding nuclear potential and reductions are justified even given nuclear programs by North Korea and Iran.
Many Western countries and the United States fear that Tehran develops nuclear program for military purposes while Iran claims nuclear program pursues peaceful purposes. The UN Security Council has adopted three economic sanctions which have not yet yielded results.
In early April 2009 North Korea launched a rocket with a satellite connection in response to which the UN Security Council condemned North Korea's actions, saying that the country had violated the provisions adopted by the UN resolution, which prohibits the state from any activities related to ballistic missiles.
In response, North Korea announced the resumption of work at the main nuclear plant to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Hale said both U.S. and Russia have far, far more weapons than would be needed to destroy countries like North Korea and Iran, so reducing the number of these weapons in the amounts being discussed will not have any significant impact on these particular threats.
Grotto shares the same opinion. He said both Russia and the United States have literally thousands more nuclear weapons than they could possibly need to deter each other, let alone Iran and North Korea, which are nowhere near having the capability to produce large numbers of warheads capable of being delivered via ballistic missile.
"I recall the words of former Secretary of Defense McNamara, who said that 200 warheads are required to destroy United States or Russia," Utkin said. "Russia already has 200 warheads but we have 7,000."
He said Russia would like to go through the path that Obama spoke about: to increase number of rockets to 1,000.
V. Zhavoronkova contributed to the article.
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