The United States hopes a draft new arms cuts treaty with Russia will be ready by early December but rules out its ratification by the time, a State Department spokesman said Monday.
"The negotiating teams continue to work very hard in Geneva...You know that when the two presidents met in Singapore, they reiterated their commitment to signing a draft treaty by the expiration date, or signing a new treaty in December anyway," Ian Kelly told journalists.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama met during an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore in mid-November.
"But as... the treaty has to be ratified by the respective legislators, we, of course, know that we are not going to have a ratified treaty that can enter into force [by that time]," he said.
"We are having discussions with Russia to see how we can continue some of the transparency and verification measures, so that these measures can continue until the treaty is ratified," the spokesman said.
The U.S. president's chief advisor on Russia also said earlier that a new treaty was unlikely to be ratified by the time the previous treaty expires.
"We won't have a ratified treaty in place by December 5th. That has to go through our Senate, through their [lower house] Duma," National Security Council Senior Director for Russia Mike McFaul told U.S. journalists in Singapore.
Medvedev expressed the hope after talks with Obama in Singapore that Russia and the United States would be able to sign a new nuclear arms reduction deal in December.
The chief of the Russian General Staff said earlier that the ongoing arms cuts talks between Russia and the U.S. had seen differences on inspection and verification procedures.
Moscow and Washington are negotiating a replacement for the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the basis for Russian-U.S. strategic nuclear disarmament, which expires on December 5.
An outline of the new pact was agreed during the Russian and U.S. presidents' bilateral summit in Moscow in July and includes cutting their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.
START I commits the parties to reducing their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up strategic arms reduction agreement was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.
WASHINGTON, November 23 (RIA Novosti)
