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Russia Offers New Proposal on Strategic Stability
Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward a new proposal on international strategic stability during his talks with French President Jacques Chirac earlier this week, top Russian diplomats said Thursday.
Putin proposed "to set in motion a permanent process of consultations on strategic stability between the five nuclear powers, the members of the U.N. Security Council," Interfax news agency cited the diplomats as saying.
"The French president said that he would consider the initiative" and it may also be discussed during the Moscow visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin in mid-July, they said.
No decision has been made yet on where, when and at what level the five nuclear powers could start the discussion, they said.
If the other nuclear countries, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and China, agree, the first meeting on strategic stability would probably be held at the expert level, the diplomats said.
The consultative mechanism could, in particular, discuss further reduction of strategic offensive weapons, according to " the well-informed sources."
They recalled Putin's proposal that Russia and the United States reduce their nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads each by 2008, provided that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty remains in place.
Today, Russia has over 6,000 nuclear warheads, and the United States has nearly 7,000. If the United States supports Putin's proposal, the five nuclear powers will have cut their nuclear arsenals by over 10,000 warheads, the diplomats said.
"That would be a revolutionary step," they stressed.
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