By Hai Yang
With bilateral relations apparently on a positive track under US President Barack Obama's administration, Russia and the United States are expected to begin the first round of consultations on a new strategic arms reduction treaty by the end of April.
Though the Obama administration regards the arms reduction talks as its first practical step toward a nuclear-free world, Russia remains cautious on the actual outcome of the talks.
A nuclear-free world
While addressing nearly 30,000 people at Hradcany Square in downtown Prague on April 5, Obama called for reducing the world's nuclear arsenal and finally eliminating all nuclear threat in the world.
He said that "to put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same."
Earlier this month in London, Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev issued a joint statement, saying the two countries will work out a "new, comprehensive, legally binding" agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms. Later Russian officials confirmed that the first round of consultations will begin by the end of April.
The joint statement said the new treaty would set lower limits for strategic weapons than the 2002 treaty, which called for reducing nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of2012.
US shift of nuclear strategy
Obama's speech in Prague marks a complete transformation in US thinking about nuclear weapons, some analysts said.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said that Obama has decided to make the elimination of all the world's nuclear weapons a central goal of US nuclear policy.
"Obama may decide that the only purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter their use and that they should never be used or threatened to counter conventional attacks," Kimball said in his article published on Monday by the Moscow Times.
To start the new US nuclear policy, Obama has chosen to negotiate with Russia on the new nuclear arms reduction treaty, said Kimball.
"The two sides will likely set lower limits on deployed strategic warheads -- to 1,500 or below on each side -- and the missiles and bombers used to deliver them," he said in the article.
"Given that no other state possesses more than 300 nuclear bombs, that simple shift in US nuclear strategy would facilitate far deeper reductions in US and Russian arsenals -- to 1,000 total nuclear warheads each in the next five years -- and open a path for multilateral disarmament talks involving other nuclear-armed states," said the article.
However, to put the nuclear-free world into reality requires more efforts from other countries, according to Kimball.
"NATO countries and Russia should agree to put tactical nuclear weapons on the negotiating table and begin a process of accounting for and eventually dismantling these obsolete systems," said the article.
