Trump was responding to Putin’s proposal to adhere for a year to the 2010 accord’s limit of 1,550 warheads on 700 delivery systems, missiles, aircraft and submarines
US President Donald Trump has rejected his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s offer to extend the cap on strategic nuclear weapons deployments after the treaty that held them in check for more than two decades expired.
“Rather than extend “New START … we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
New START, signed in 2010 and extended once in 2021 for five years by then US President Joe Biden and Putin, limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and caps launchers and missiles. Its lapse would leave, for the first time in more than five decades, no binding restraints on the US and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Experts believe that an expiration of the treaty would trigger an unprecedented arms race between the two countries. At the same time, some in the US say that the pact restricted Washington from deploying enough weapons to deter nuclear threats posed by both Russia and China.
What did Putin offer?
Trump was responding to Putin’s proposal to adhere for a year to the 2010 accord’s limit of 1,550 warheads on 700 delivery systems, missiles, aircraft and submarines.
With the treaty’s expiration, the last remaining limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals have been removed for the first time in more than 50 years. Trump has previously said he favours maintaining some form of nuclear weapons, but has argued that any future agreement should also include China.
In his post, Trump called New START “a badly negotiated deal” that he said “is being grossly violated,” an apparent reference to Putin’s 2023 decision to halt on-site inspections and other measures designed to reassure each side that the other was complying with the treaty.
Putin cited US support for Ukraine’s battle against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion as the reason for his decision.
‘Ready to engage in talks’
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has indicated that Russia is open to holding talks over the treaty with the US, but only if Trump responds positively to Putin’s proposal.
“Listen, if there are any constructive replies, of course we will conduct a dialogue,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The UN has urged both sides to restore the treaty.
Some reports have suggested that both Washington and Moscow are considering voluntarily adhering to the treaty’s limits for a limited additional period, potentially up to six months. However, it remains uncertain whether such an arrangement would be formally codified or function as an informal political understanding.
With inputs from agencies
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