A U.S.-Russia commission has completed a regular meeting in Geneva on the implementation of the New START deal.
“The fourth session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) under the New START Treaty was held in Geneva from September 11-21,” the U.S. State Department said on Friday.
“The United States and Russia continued to discuss practical issues related to the implementation of the Treaty during the current year,” it said in a statement.
The New START deal was signed by the U.S. and Russian presidents in Prague in April 2010. It entered into force in February 2011.
Signed by the presidents of Russia and the United States, the Treaty cut both nations' nuclear arsenals to 1,550 nuclear warheads.
The United States and Russia have exchanged more than 2,800 notifications on U.S. and Russian strategic forces, State Department spokesman Jamie Mannina said, adding that the inspections enable each side to confirm the validity of that data.
“The United States and Russia are now reducing our nuclear arms under the New START Treaty - the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly 20 years. Implementation is going very well. When the Treaty reductions are completed, we will have cut American and Russian deployed nuclear warheads to their lowest levels since the 1950s,” Mannina said.
“On-site inspections are underway; a U.S. team arrived in Russia last week to conduct an on-site New START inspection. This brings the U.S. total to 11 for the year. [Each side, Russia and the United States, may conduct up to 18 annually],” he said.
“The Parties are on track to fulfill their annual quota of inspections again during this second year of implementation,” Mannina said, adding that the New START’s “verification regime works and is setting an important precedent for future agreements.”
