Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he pressed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to reestablish the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, during their brief encounter Thursday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi. It was the first face-to-face meeting of high-level U.S. and Russian officials since Russia’s invasion over one year ago.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “I urged Russia to reverse its irresponsible decision and return to implementing the New START treaty, which places verifiable limits on the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Russian Federation. Mutual compliance is in the interest of both our countries. It’s also what people around the world expect from us as nuclear powers.”
Neither the U.S. nor Russia has joined 92 other nations that have signed the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.