Azerbaijan, Baku, May 15 / Trend E. Tariverdiyeva/
Any purposeful inaccuracy in counting nuclear warheads would seriously complicate any nuclear disarmament negotiations process between the United States and Russia and can inhibit the signature of a nuclear disarmament treaty, American expert on security Yannis Stivachtis said.
Report on the state of nuclear parity between Russia and the United States, published in Washington, has caused bewilderment in the Russian expert community, RBK reported. Data on the nuclear capabilities of both countries included in the report sharply at odds with the figures set out the Russia. The inaccuracy of counting warheads is capable of seriously complicating the preparation of a new Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms (START).
On Feb. 9, Russian Vice Premier Sergey Ivanov said that Russia was ready to begin negotiations on a new text of the Treaty on the Control of Strategic Offensive Arms (START) at the Conference for Security in Munich. "Such negotiations will begin fairly quickly and actively as soon as the American side will be ready," Ivanov said.
Russian media reported about preparations to prepare START-2 agreement in Dec. 2008 and Jan. 2009. Nevertheless, any specific information about its contents was not provided. It was expected that the START-2 treaty could become one of the issues on the agenda of discussions of Obama's visit to Russia. According to unconfirmed reports, the visit will take place in April.
The report "Current State and Prospects of Nuclear Arms Reductions under the New Agreements on START" has been prepared by Research Center of Federation of American Scientists (FAS), one of the most authoritative non-governmental organizations dealing with nuclear arms control in the United States.
According to the report, the United States has 2,700 armed with nuclear warheads, of which 2,200 are strategic and 500 are tactical. Russian FAS nuclear capability is considered to be 4,830 warheads, of which 2,780 classified as strategic and 2,050 are of tactical nature. The United States has a reserve of 2,500 warheads and Russia has 3,500.
One should be able to distinguish between a" purposeful inaccuracy in counting" from what "should be counted, Director on International Relations at University of Virginia Stivachtis wrote to Trend in am email.
He said in other words, the variation in numbers may be the result of what each side wishes to include in the counting.
Stivachtis said the situation with START becomes complicated due to the existence of SORT (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty). SORT stipulated that Russia and the United States would reduce their respective arsenals to 1,700-2,200 "operationally deployed" warheads (essentially warheads in an active alert status) by the end of 2012.
In 2002, Presidents of Russia and the United States Vladimir Putin and George Bush signed a joint declaration on new strategic relations between Russia and the United States and the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT) in Moscow. The documents were signed during the official visit of the U.S. president to Russia.
Expert said in contrast to START, SORT did not offer a clearly defined mechanism for inspection or verification of disarmament, and does not address reserve stockpiles. This difference is essential in the sense that Moscow will be aiming for a new treaty similar to START I, while Washington will favor a structure more along the lines of SORT.
The re-negotiation of START based on force structure and highly regimented mechanisms could quickly descend into legalistic and technical differences, he said.
"So, if the START II is to be signed many differences between the two sides would have already been addressed," he said.
"It would be difficult, albeit not impossible, to establish a Commission which would be tasked with controlling the number of nuclear heads in both countries. The reason for such difficulty has to do with claims of both sides to sovereignty. Actually, the establishment of a Verification Commission itself would be subject to protracted negotiations as the two sides have to agree on technical issues such as Commission membership, areas of operation, conditions under which the Commission would operate, etc.," he said.
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