US has not received notice that Russia has suspended nuclear notifications under New START treaty

29-03-2023 23:20:46 World

The United States has not received notice from Russia “indicating a change” in nuclear notifications, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Wednesday.

Speaking at a department briefing, Patel said that he had seen comments from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov that all types of notifications between Russia and the US under the New START treaty had been suspended.

However, “we have not received any notice indicating a change,” Patel said.

Patel said the US has been “concerned about Russia's reckless behavior" over the treaty.

A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday that “with the exception of this countermeasure regarding the biannual data update” — which the US said it would not provide because Russia said it would not — “the United States continues to fully implement the New START treaty, including the central limits.”

What to know about New START: The treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. It was last extended in early 2021 for five years, meaning the two sides would soon need to begin negotiating on another arms control agreement. Under the key nuclear arms control treaty, both the United States and Russia are permitted to conduct inspections of each other's weapons sites, though inspections had been halted since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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