On Tuesday 23 June, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the United States and Russia should extend the New START treaty, pending negotiation of an agreement that would include China.
The inclusion of China in the talks is an area of disagreement between Washington and Moscow, while Beijing has refused to join the negotiations. The New START treaty aimed at reducing the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons expires on 5 February 2021.
Stoltenberg stressed the fact that Beijing should be involved in global arms control, telling the German Marshall Fund that, “in the absence of any agreement which includes China, I think the right thing will be to extend the existing New Start agreement to provide the necessary time to find an agreement between the US and Russia, but also with China” (see EUROPE 12509/14).
The Secretary General emphasised that, following expiry of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the United States has criticised because of numerous violations on the part of Russia, it is not worth taking the risk of losing the New START treaty until there is another agreement to take its place.
Stoltenberg therefore welcomed the talks held the previous day by the United States and Russia on a nuclear arms control agreement. He particularly welcomed the fact that the parties had agreed on a second round of negotiations and on establishing working groups. “Of course, there is still a long way to go (to reach an agreement), but these are important first steps”, the Secretary General said.
He announced that Marshall Billingslea, the US president's special envoy for arms control, would be discussing negotiations with Russia with the allies on Wednesday, and added that the United States was consulting closely with allies on the matter.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), the United States and Russia still hold 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, with 5,800 and 6,375 nuclear warheads respectively, a long way ahead of China (320). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)