“Bilateral work on START to be finished soon”

Konstantin Kosachev, Head of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee confirmed the new START treaty could be signed in a matter of days.

Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama spoke over the phone during the weekend with the aim of trying to forge a new arms deal.

“Everybody expects the reset button to start functioning in bilateral relations between Russia and the United States," Kosachev told RT. "Something has already changed for the better, but we need some real results, and the first real result is definitely the follow-up treaty on the strategic arms. In case these negotiations become a success story, I believe we will be able to make better progress in other areas like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, like our cooperation on Afghanistan, on Iran, on North Korea, on many other issues where our interests do not contradict each other, but in many cases just coincide with each other.”