WASHINGTON, June 3. /TASS/. Conducting non-public security consultations could help Russia and the United States eventually develop a new agreement to replace the expired Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Arms Control Association, Thomas Countryman, told TASS.
"I think prospects for a new treaty right now are very low," the expert, who served as Acting US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security in 2016-2017, noted while speaking about the prospects for Moscow and Washington to develop a new arms control treaty. As Countryman noted, the aforementioned association hopes that Russia and the US will "start talking to each other." "I just mean talking, I do not mean a strategic stability dialogue with big capital letters and lots of publicity, but quiet discussion about the security concerns that each has, and as they make the effort to understand each other better, that will lead, I hope, towards an agreement about the next treaty," he explained. The expert participated in the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association held in Washington.
