U.S. Secretary of state Michael Pompeo said the progress in the negotiations with Russia on arms control. His words TASS reports.
According to Pompeo, the last months have conducted hard work on the dialogue between the three countries with the largest Arsenal of nuclear weapons — the US, Russia and China. “We Russians have made progress, we have had two good meetings,” he said.
the Secretary of state also expressed the hope to hold another meeting with the Russian side in the near future. In addition, he relied on the participation of China in the negotiations. “We hope that Russia will encourage them to participate,” said Pompeo.
the Treaty on the limitation of strategic offensive arms (start-3) was signed in 2010 by then presidents of Russia and the USA Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. It entered into force in 2011. the validity of the start-3 expires in February 2021, this is the last existing agreement on arms control between Russia and the United States.
In Washington indicated that he would agree to extend the contract, if the parties will achieve progress in the inclusion of new strict measures of verification, if it will take into account all the nuclear warheads and also in case of accession of China. The Director of the Department of arms control Ministry of foreign Affairs of China Fu Cong said that Beijing will take part in tripartite negotiations, but only if the American side agrees to reduce its nuclear Arsenal to the level of the PRC.
