(VOVWORLD) - President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia is prepared to drop a nuclear arms control agreement with the US, known as New START, if there is a lack of interest in renewing it.
 Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo: TASS/ VNA) |
"If no-one feels like extending the agreement- New START- well, Moscow won't do it then," Putin said at an economic forum in Saint Petersburg, referring to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The treaty was signed by US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague in 2010. The agreement, which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits, is set to expire in two years' time. Washington and Moscow dropped the INF treaty earlier this year amid mutual recriminations. In February, Washington pulled out of the INF treaty, which was signed in 1987, over what it said were Russian violations of the terms.