ARMS CONTROL NOW -- Senior Russian, U.S. Diplomats Meet in Prague to Discuss Arms Control

ARMS CONTROL NOW

Authored by Daryl Kimball, Kingston Reif, and Shervin Taheran on June 19, 2019

Senior Russian, U.S. Diplomats Meet in Prague to Discuss Arms Control

In the midst of a crumbling U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control architecture, the top arms control diplomats for each country met June 12 in Prague in an apparent effort to resume a stalled strategic stability dialogue. But it remains to be seen whether or when the dialogue will resume.

According to the State Department, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov met to “build on the discussions” held by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in Sochi May 14. The department added that Thompson “raised a range of U.S. national security priorities and strategic security issues on which the United States would like to engage in a more constructive dialogue with Russia.”

Ryabkov was more candid with Russian journalists, stating that the meeting was “a starting point” for further conversations and negotiations. Though the meeting did not produce an agreement on concrete work plans, Ryabkov said the meeting was “positive” and both sides recognized the importance of continued dialogue.

Though a list of specific items on the agenda was not released by either side after the meeting, a June 7 Russian news report quoted Ryabkov as saying that Russia intends to discuss “the [2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] New START Treaty, the prospects for the NPT review process, the situation with the [1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] CTBT Treaty” as well as ”the prospect of the appearance of strike weapons in space, the situation with the unlimited deployment of the U.S. global missile defense system.”

The two sides also discussed the Trump administration’s desire to pursue multilateral arms control talks with Russia and China. Ryabkov noted that while the idea is good in the long term, it also needs to include all member of the five recognized nuclear-weapon states, notably the United Kingdom and France.

Following a May 14 meeting in Sochi, Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lavrov, Pompeo told reporters that the two countries “agreed that … we will gather together teams that will begin to work not only on New START and its potential extension but on a broader range of arms control issues that each of our two nations have.”—KINGSTON REIF, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, and SHERVIN TAHERAN, research assistant