Posted on 25-5-2002

US-Russia Nuclear Weapons Reduction Treaty
by Alan Marston

President Bush and the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin, calling the event
historic, put their names today to a treaty reducing their countries'
nuclear warheads by two thirds. "We are going to cast aside all doubts and
suspicions and welcome a new era of relations," Mr. Bush said in a
televised meeting with Mr. Putin just before the signing ceremony in the
Kremlin. "Today we may say we are creating qualitatively new relations,"
Mr. Putin said.

Under the Treaty of Moscow, each country will reduce its arsenals to
between 1,700 and 2,200 nuclear warheads by 2012. The two countries, former
cold war foes, currently have about 6,000 warheads each. This has to be
seen as a big step ... in the Right direction? Time will tell, however a
watching brief is needed after the signing of any agreement, especially one
that gives one side options (the USA does not have to destroy its weapons,
only dismantle) the other side doesn't get (Russia is being helped by US
technical help and money to destroy weapons on the basis they are not
maintainable even in dismantled form).

"Welcome to Moscow, my dear friend," said Mr. Putin, who is studying
English. "Beautiful place," said Mr. Bush, looking at the plush
furnishings, gilt clocks and enormous paintings in the sumptous St.
Catherine's Hall, which is lined with malachite pillars. Mr. Bush arrived
here Thursday night to be greeted by a brass band, a parade of
flag-carrying, arm-swinging soldiers and a rebuke over remarks he made
earlier about Russian aid to Iran's nuclear programs.

Before leaving Germany, President Bush told reporters that the United
States was concerned about Russian experts' work on an Iranian nuclear
reactor in the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr. Iran says the reactor will
generate power, but American intelligence analysts insist that it could be
used to produce the core of a nuclear bomb. But hardly before Mr. Bush's
motorcade arrived in downtown Moscow, Russia's foreign minister, Igor
Ivanov, was on state-controlled ORT television, dismissing the charges.
"Quite often, we hear what I want to stress are groundless statements that
Russia is supposedly helping Iran," he said. "Unfortunately, Iran is a sore
point in our relations. But we always stick to a nonproliferation regime."

Mr. Ivanov stressed that while the Kremlin viewed American politicians as
of two minds about Russia — some trusting, others eternally suspicious —
Mr. Putin and his aides saw Mr. Bush as firmly in the first camp.