Arms control talks

A senior Russian diplomat harshly criticized the U.S. stance in arms control talks Friday, saying it could further erode mutual trust and undermine global stability.

The United States and Russia have begun talks on a successor deal to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which expires in December 2009, but a cold spell in Russia-U.S. relations has stymied talks.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russian and U.S. negotiators have failed to agree on the basic approach as to which weapons should be counted under the new deal.

Russia wants to count missiles, bombers and submarines along with nuclear warheads fitted to them, as was done in the START I treaty, while the United States agrees only to count nuclear warheads, Ryabkov said.

START I was signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush, obligating each country to cut its nuclear warhead stocks by at least one-quarter to about 6,000. Another arms control deal — the so-called Treaty of Moscow — was signed in 2002 and called for cutting each country's nuclear arsenal further to 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012. The document was closely based on START I rules and its verification procedures.