MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian-American talks to prepare documents for the upcoming visit of President George W. Bush to Russia resumed in Moscow on Tuesday morning.
The talks began on Monday. This is the second round of talks, following those held in Washington at the end of January. Interfax was told the main purpose is to work out a legally- binding document on the radical reduction of Russian and American strategic offensive armaments.
The delegations are led by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov and Under Secretary of State John Bolton. In addition to diplomats, there are experts from the defense ministries and government agencies of the two countries in the delegations.
The talks involve Deputy Chief-of-Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yuri Baluyevsky and American Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, who returned from the United States on Monday.
At the beginning of the meeting, Mamedov and Bolton held a one-on-one meeting.
The sources said that after the first round of talks, the American side agreed with Russia on documenting the reduction in a legally-binding act. Russian officials submitted to their American counterparts "elements of the future agreement, stating the principles which Moscow finds necessary to record in such a document, and also a draft declaration on ways of forming a new strategic relationship between the two countries."
Diplomatic sources told Interfax that at the Moscow talks, Russia hopes to receive concrete replies to its proposals.