Clinton comes to Russia to talk START

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his US counterpart Hillary Clinton will meet in Moscow next week to discuss the details of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The Russian Foreign Ministry made the announcement on the aftermath of the sixth round of bilateral talks in Geneva on Saturday.

The ministry branded the discussions “constructive”, adding that the full results of the talks will be announced during the upcoming meeting of Sergey Lavrov and Hillary Clinton on October 13.

Earlier, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev told the UN Council that the US and Russia are “ready to move further and cut the number of delivery vehicles for strategic offensive armaments by more than three times.” The Russian president suggested that the new treaty might be ready by December 2009.

The US State Department reported in April that, as of January, Russia had 3,909 nuclear warheads and 814 delivery vehicles, while the United States possessed 5,576 warheads and 1,198 delivery vehicles.

The US Secretary of State’s visit to Russia comes as part of her European tour that also includes Britain and Ireland.