U.S. and Russia hold nuclear talks in Geneva after summit promotion Reuters

Authors: Stephanie Nebehay and Jonathan Landay

Geneva/Washington (Reuters)-The U.S. State Department said that senior U.S. and Russian officials resumed negotiations on Wednesday to ease tensions between the world’s largest nuclear powers and agreed to reconvene the meeting in September after informal consultations.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov led a delegation to attend the meeting held at the US Embassy in Geneva.

TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying that he was satisfied with the consultations and the United States expressed its willingness to engage in constructive dialogue during the talks.

Under the authorization of the leaders of both sides, this is the first time in nearly a year that the two sides have held so-called strategic stability negotiations under the circumstances of friction on a series of issues including arms control.

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in June to initiate a bilateral dialogue on strategic stability to “lay the foundation for future arms control and risk reduction measures.” These two countries possess 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that after the next round of informal consultations aimed at “determining the issues of the expert working group”, the two sides agreed to reconvene the meeting in late September.

He called this discussion “professional and substantive.” The US side discussed US policy priorities, the current international security environment, “prospects for new nuclear arms control,” and the format of further talks.

A senior State Department official said that the decision to meet again shows that the two sides understand the need to resolve arms control disputes, which have ended several Cold War treaties, including a treaty restricting medium-range missiles.

“We know that, as the largest nuclear-weapon state, we have a responsibility to find a way to improve strategic stability in response to the deteriorating arms control structure,” the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters.

The official said that this includes responding to threats posed by “emerging technologies that may undermine strategic stability.”

Such new threats may include artificial intelligence-controlled weapons, possible cyber attacks on existing nuclear weapons systems, and more esoteric weapons, such as highly mobile air or underwater hypersonic weapons that can evade defenses.

Andrei Baklitsky, a senior researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies of the United States of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told reporters in Geneva: “We started with the new US government, almost from scratch.

“It’s just to meet and say hello, and try to build some basic understanding,” he said.

Russia and the United States extended the bilateral new START nuclear weapons control treaty for five years in February, and the treaty is about to expire.

The treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy.

It is expected that the two sides will discuss which weapon systems and technologies receive the most attention.

“For example, Russia is still concerned about the U.S. modifying heavy bombers and launchers to launch ballistic missiles, and this situation has been around for some time,” Barklitsky said.

He said that the Biden administration claimed that Russia had unilaterally conducted low-yield nuclear tests and violated the nuclear test moratorium.