Russia postpones arms talks with US, scheduled to take place in Egypt despite tensions over the Ukraine conflict announced on Monday.
“The session of the bilateral coordinating committee on the Russian-American START Treaty, previously scheduled to take place in Cairo between November 29 and December 6, will not take place on the dates indicated,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told state-run news agency TASS.
“The event postponed to a later date,” quoted as saying.
No other facts were provided.
The United States had said this month that it likely to meet with Russia soon to debate the possible resumption of inspections under New START.
New START is the last bilateral agreement of its kind among the world’s two main nuclear powers.
Signed in 2010, it narrows the funds of the two countries to a maximum of 1,550 arranged strategic nuclear warheads each — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Moscow had given no reason for calling off the Cairo meeting, the first face-to-face talks scheduled since the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to them.
“It’s basically an opportunity for both sides to get together and talk about the technicalities, the formalities, the compliance mechanisms that are in place with respect to New START,” he said.
“We haven’t received a real solid answer from the Russians as to why they postponed this. We’re going to be working through the embassy to try to figure out what happened here,” he said.
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“We would like to see it get back on the schedule as soon as possible,” Kirby added.
“It’s not just important for our two nations. Important for the rest of the world,” he said.