Article Posted on : - Dec 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (BNS): Russia and US will continue to negotiate on replacement pact for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in mid-January next year as the two countries couldn’t make any decision at the last meeting of the year.

"Over the weekend, the US delegation, led by Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller has returned for a recess from the START negotiations in Geneva. The negotiations between officials of the two countries would now begin mid-January," Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley told reporters.

Russian and US officials have been holding talks for the past few months on the replacement pact for the START I which expired on December 5. This year, final talk was held in Geneva from November 9 to December 19.

"The team has gone through an intensive period of negotiations with their Russian counterparts over more than two months. Our goal remains to conclude a solid treaty for the President's signature as soon as possible, and we expect that the teams will resume their negotiations in Geneva in mid-January," Crowley said.

US was keen to end the negotiation this year itself to achieve a new treaty to replace START.

"I don't think that we're particularly, concerned, given the complexity of these issues, that it's taking a longer period of time," Crowley said, adding the two countries have made "dramatic progress" in this regard.

"There are still issues that we continue to work through. So there's still more work to be done, but I think we remain confident that, you know, given good faith and the, you know, ongoing efforts of both sides, that this will get done," Crowley hoped.

The State Department official said the goal is to have a treaty that is in the interest of both the countries.

"We're not negotiating just to get a treaty, any treaty. We're negotiating to get a treaty that is in the interest of the United States and, we believe, in the interest of Russia," he said.

"The issues that we're working through in terms of numbers and verification and the complex issues, regarding these kinds of systems, it does take significant time to work through it. It's very, very complex," Crowley said.

"But we continue to work on them. We've made progress. We think we're in a pretty good position. But we thought that after a couple of months of very intensive work it was useful to take a break. And we'll resume this in early January," he said.

START negotiations began in 1982 when the United States proposed large reductions in the nuclear arsenals of both sides.