U.S. and Russian arms-control negotiators have reached an «agreement in principle» on the first nuclear-arms-reduction treaty in nearly two decades, administration and arms-control officials said Tuesday. The deal, which was widely expected, would bring down deployed nuclear warheads and sharply limit the number of missiles and bombers that can deliver them. He would bring the ceiling for deployed nuclear weapons down to between 1,500 and 1,675 per side, from the 2,200 agreed to in 1991, but nuclear-delivery systems would fall more sharply, to between 700 and 800 each from the current limit of 1,600. In fact, both sides have already reduced their nuclear-armed bombers, submarines and missiles to below 1,000.
The breakthrough on a follow-on treaty to the now-lapsed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty came two weeks ago when National Security Adviser James Jones and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to Moscow to work through two issues on verification, the sharing of data on missile flight tests and inspections at missile production facilities, White House officials said. The deal was approved in principle last week during a phone conversation between Mr. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Under the agreement, the Russians will share flight-test data, something they had resisted as they develop more-modern ballistic missiles. But monitoring of a key ballistic-missile site in Russia, which ended in 2008, won't resume, according to officials familiar with the accord.
A senior Russian official said major issues are getting resolved and talks are «in the home stretch.» The Kremlin is hopeful a deal could be finalized in a few weeks or so, the official said. The U.S. administration official cautioned that the final drafting could take a week to two months, depending on snags that could arise. When the U.S. and Russian presidents announced the arms-control talks in April of last year, they set a deadline of Dec. 5 to complete them. That deadline slipped, and White House aides are hesitant to declare victory now.
