MOSCOW. Oct 31 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia and the United States may soon find a solution to the problem of anti-missile defense and several other problems related to challenges and threats of the 21st century, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said on Wednesday.
The solution may be found at negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday, Vershbow told Andrei Nikolayev, defence committee chairman in the State Duma lower house of Russian parliament. The summit of the Russian and U.S. presidents scheduled for November will outline the solution more precisely, he said.
Nikolayev told the ambassador that "a new framework for cooperation cannot be shaped out of nothing." According to the lawmaker, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, START treaties and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty can serve as a good foundation.
"However the foundation has not become common, because Russia has ratified the START-2 treaty and the United States has not," Nikolayev said. Moreover, the United States has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty either.
Vershbow responded by saying that those treaties belonged to the past for the United States.