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President Barack Obama says the pact was part of an effort to “reset” relations.
President Obama, accompanied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, brief reporters.
AP photo
WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Russia sealed the first major nuclear weapons treaty in nearly two decades Friday, agreeing to slash the former Cold War rivals’ warhead arsenals by nearly one-third and talking hopefully of eventually ridding a fearful world of nuclear arms altogether.
President Barack Obama said the pact was part of an effort to “reset” relations with Russia that have been badly frayed. And at home the agreement gave him the biggest foreign policy achievement of his presidency, just days after he signed the landmark health care overhaul that has been his domestic priority.
Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign the agreement April 8 in Prague, where Obama gave a major speech on doing away with nuclear arms one year ago.
If ratified by the Senate and by Russia’s legislature, the reductions still would leave both countries, by far the world’s largest nuclear powers, with immense arsenals — and the ability to easily annihilate each other. Together, the United States and Russia possess about 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Still, Obama called the pact a step toward “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
Agreed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, “Both parties see the ultimate goal in building a nuclear-free world.”
No one sees that any time soon. But U.S. leaders noted that the agreement came shortly before Obama was to host an international conference on nuclear proliferation in Washington.
The United States hopes the agreement will lead to better cooperation on other issues, such as a unified U.S.-Russian stance against the development of nuclear weapons by Iran.
Ratification in the Senate will require 67 votes, two-thirds of the senators, meaning Obama will need support from Republicans, something he’s found hard to come by on other issues.
Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, welcomed Friday’s announcement. Lugar, who is influential among fellow GOP senators as an arms control expert, said he looked forward to receiving the treaty so that the committee could hold hearings and “work quickly to achieve ratification.”