Russian President Vladimir Putin presented his US counterpart Donald Trump at the July 16 summit in Helsinki with a number of particular initiatives on arms control, including prohibiting weapons in space, Politico wrote on Tuesday citing a leaked Russian document.
According to the report, the Russian document with the header "Dialogue on the Issue of Arms Control" proposes "a five-year extension for the so-called New START Treaty limiting nuclear arms."
"The Russian document outlines a host of areas where the two countries could work together to reduce nuclear dangers and rebuild some of their lost trust."
"The new details provide evidence that Putin remains interested in maintaining the two nations’ traditional cooperation on nuclear weapons despite all their other friction, said one participant in recent unofficial arms control talks in Moscow," according to the paper.
The memo also addresses mounting tensions in Eastern Europe, suggesting that Washington and Moscow should "take measures in order to prevent incidents while conducting military activities in Europe, as well as to increase trust and transparency in the military sphere."
The document calls on the two sides to "initiate expert consultations to identify destabilizing kinds of arms, to take them into account in the arms control mechanism."
The "strategic stability" consultations should be led by deputy secretary of state and deputy minister of foreign affairs, who could discuss some "thorny" issues, including Syria, the document says. It also recommends launching the 2+2 dialogue between the US Secretaries of State and Defense and their Russian counterparts.
John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, confirmed in July that the process was underway to arrange "a period of time, a date and a place, to meet to have strategic stability talks," the paper says.
The first full-fledged talks between Putin and Trump took place in Finland’s capital of Helsinki on July 16. The one-on-one meeting between the two leaders lasted for more than two hours. Later, both delegation members joined the presidents for a larger working lunch. The expanded session also lasted for roughly two hours, with the talks covering crucial bilateral and global issues. Both presidents said after the summit that a big step forward had been taken.
