April, 08 2010, 11:31am EDT
Arms Control Experts Praise Signing of New START with Russia
WASHINGTON
Early this morning, President Barack
Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the most significant
nuclear reductions treaty in decades between the United States and
Russia.
The signing ceremony took place in
Prague, Czech Republic, the location of President Obama's April 2009
historic speech on nuclear weapons.
"The signing
of this treaty is a huge step forward in advancing the bipartisan
nuclear security agenda that the President outlined in Prague in April
2009 to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons," said the Center's Executive Director John
Isaacs. "We welcome the announcement of the completion of a new
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons
in the United States and Russia."
The "Prague Agenda" included three
primary objectives: reduce and eventually eliminate the 23,000 nuclear
weapons remaining in the world, prevent the proliferation of nuclear
weapons to new states, and secure nuclear weapons-usable materials to
prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. Nuclear
reductions by the United States and Russia are they key to moving
forward on the first goal.
"This agreement gets the
United States back on track towards meaningful, legally-binding,
verifiable nuclear arms control. It gets us back on track toward
reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the two countries that
currently possess more than 90% of those remaining in the world," added Leonor Tomero, the Center's director
of nuclear non-proliferation. "It is a key element of the
President's efforts to effectively address the most pressing security
threat to the United States: the proliferation of nuclear weapons."
In addition to guiding the
reduction of the United States' and Russia's deployed strategic nuclear
weapons, New START provides the verification procedures necessary to
ensure both nations comply.
"The sooner the treaty
enters into force, the sooner important verification procedures can be
up and running again. We look for a Senate vote on the treaty this
year," added Isaacs.
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)3 non-profit, non-partisan research organization dedicated to enhancing international peace and security in the 21st century. The Center is funded by grants from private foundations and the generosity of thousands of individual donors.
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