Russia welcomed Friday the Biden administration’s announcement Thursday it is seeking a five-year extension of the New START arms control treaty, set to expire February 5, with the Kremlin saying it is waiting to see the details.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a press briefing at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 14, 2021.Also, on Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the U.S. and Russia should extend the treaty and broaden it. ”We should not end up in a situation with no limitation on nuclear warheads, and New START will expire within days,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.”An extension of the New START is not the end, it’s the beginning of our efforts to further strengthen arms control,” Stoltenberg said. The treaty was signed in 2010 by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Under the pact, each country is limited to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads. Former U.S. President Donald Trump had attacked the deal, contending that it put the United States at a disadvantage.
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