A nuclear arms reduction pact between Russia and the United States could be ready for signing by late March or early April, Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Tuesday. Russian and US teams have been negotiating for months on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired in December.
The push is part of efforts by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev to mend ties. "The end of March-April - those are the dates when, if the delegations firmly follow the directives of the presidents, they will finish preparing the treaty," Itar-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying. "When and where it will be signed is for the presidents to decide," Lavrov was quoted as saying.
Lavrov's remarks suggested the pact could be ready for signing before a nuclear security summit planned by Obama in Washington in mid-April. Lavrov said he would discuss the arms pact with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she arrives in Moscow on Thursday ahead of a meeting on Middle East peace efforts. He said he expected both sides would hear reports from their negotiators ahead of the meeting, and suggested there were no serious barriers to a deal.
"I hope they will report progress, because I see no signs that there is anything wrong," state-run RIA quoted Lavrov as saying. Lavrov said much of remained to be done entailed putting the agreement "in treaty language" and editing the text, Russian news agencies reported. He said the treaty itself would consist of 20 pages while an accompanying protocol was "a far more voluminous document", Interfax reported.
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