Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 3, 2002
From John King,CNN Washington

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top U.S. and Russian diplomats reported progress Friday in trying to reach an agreement on strategic nuclear arms reductions before President Bush's summit later this month with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Emerging from a meeting with Bush, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said there was a "very high probability" of reaching an agreement before the Moscow summit.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was similarly upbeat after a later meeting with Ivanov, though he said differences between the two sides remain.

"I'm encouraged by the progress we've made," he said. "Remaining differences are there, and we need to spend more time working on them and discussing them to see if we can resolve them in time for the Moscow summit. If we can, fine. And if we're unable to, the work will continue."

Powell declined to describe what differences remain between U.S. and Russian negotiators.

The agreement would be a landmark pact to dramatically reduce the active strategic nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals, with the goal of cutting each side's nuclear arsenals by roughly two-thirds.

Bush has proposed slashing the U.S. long-range nuclear arsenal from about 6,000 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads. Putin has said he is open to cutting Moscow's arsenal to about 1,500 warheads.

One major issue in the negotiations has been whether the warheads would be destroyed or just dismantled and put into storage. Russia prefers that they be destroyed, while the United States wants to put a number of warheads in storage to be available in an emergency.

Negotiators said a Russian counterproposal on that issue in recent weeks cleared the way for progress.

Powell said another issue still to be determined is whether the binding agreement between the two sides would be an executive agreement or a formal treaty, which would require Senate approval.

Bush said at the beginning of the debate that a handshake agreement with Putin would be acceptable to him, but the Russians have been pressing for a formal treaty.

"Both a treaty and an executive agreement are legally binding in international law," Powell said. "It's a political judgment we'll be making in the days ahead."

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/03/us.russia.weapons/index.html