UFA. June 19 (Interfax) - Russia has proposed to the United States to launch full-format negotiations on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), Deputy Russian Security Council Secretary Alexander Venediktov said.
"We are convinced that now it's necessary to display as much common sense and pragmatism as possible and urgently launch a full-format negotiation process. This is exactly what Moscow has been repeatedly calling on Washington to do," Venediktov told reporters in Ufa.
"The existing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is today virtually the last bastion that can stop us sliding back into the situation in the rocket and nuclear sphere that existed in the darkest periods of the Cold War," he said.
"For our part, we believe that the situation can still be fixed," Venediktov said.
The New START Treaty will remain in effect until February 2021. Russia and the U.S. may agree on extending it for another five years.
Russia does not have to get the treaty prolonged; it has the weapons to guarantee its security, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on June 6.