MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax) - State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky has welcomed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement on the possible extension of the New START treaty as positive.
"Indeed, this is constructive, good news, but we need to be sure that this is the actual position of the United States, unlike the position expressed by the Department of State earlier and denied by it within a short time. Let us see what happens in the near future," Slutsky told the press on Thursday.
It is quite possible that the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will prevent New START from being extended in 2021, Slutsky said. "Regretfully, in that case we will have to state the collapse of the entire nuclear deterrence system, which, obviously, would be a highly destructive factor for the peaceful and stable global architecture of the new century," he said.