Pinning Down a Disarmament Deal

President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed on final terms for a new nuclear arms reduction agreement, a successor to the START treaty of 1991. The new deal will remove about a third of the warheads deployed by each country.

Even with the new reductions, the two countries will have about 3,000 nuclear-tipped missiles between them, mostly pointed at each other. –JCL

Al-Jazeera English:

Barack Obama, the US president, and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, have finalised the terms of a new nuclear arms reduction agreement.

The two leaders approved the deal for a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which will cut the amount of missiles deployed by both countries by one third, following a telephone conversation on Friday.

Speaking from the White House, Obama said: “With this agreement, the United States and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers in the world, also send a clear signal that we intend to lead.

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