December 5, 2001

STATEMENT BY ALEXANDER YAKOVENKO, THE OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN OF RUSSIA'S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Regarding the End of the Period of Strategic Offensive Arms Reductions under the START Treaty


The period of strategic offensive arms reductions provided by the Treaty on Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START-1 Treaty), to which Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine - the Soviet successor states - and the United States of America are parties, ended on December 5. Under this Treaty, the parties had assumed obligations seven years after its entry into force to reduce the number of their strategic delivery vehicles to 1,600, and the number of warheads attributed to them - to the level of 6,000 each, and to set also other limits.

The Russian side has fully honored its obligations for those reductions and as of the control date of December 5, 2001, had actually reduced the number of its deployed strategic delivery vehicles (ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers) to 1,136, and the number of warheads attributed to them to 5,518.

We expect that the United States of America too will reach the reduction levels set by the Treaty. At the same time we have questions relating to the fulfillment of a number of obligations under this Treaty. We believe that these questions will be settled in the nearest future.

A complete and timely implementation of the provisions of the START-1 Treaty creates a good basis for elaborating an agreement on further drastic reductions of strategic offensive arms, on which the Russian and US presidents agreed during their November summit.