The Bush administration will send an interagency team of policy and technical experts to Moscow next week for strategic security dialogue with Russia, State Department announced on Friday.
Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, John C. Rood, will lead the team to Moscow on Dec. 15, according to a statement issued by the State Department.
The team will discuss with its Russian counterpart " transparency and confidence-building measures regarding the proposed U.S. missile defense deployments in Europe," said the statement.
The United States is planning to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic as part of its European missile shield. Related treaty or agreement were signed separately this summer.
The Bush administration, whose tenure will expire on Jan. 20, has tried to convince Moscow that its missile defense system in Europe was aimed at preventing from so-called rogue countries, but not targeted at Russia.
Russia strongly opposes the plan, which it says poses a threat to its security. The Medvedev-led government has decided to station tactical missiles in s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland.
According to the statement, the two sides will also discuss "a follow-on agreement to the START Treaty, WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) proliferation, combating WMD terrorism, and other non- proliferation issues."
The START, signed by U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush and USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and came into force in 1994, will expire in December 2009.
The treaty places a limit of 6,000 strategic or long-range nuclear warheads on each side, and limits the number of strategic delivery vehicles, such as bombers, land based and submarine based missiles, to 1,600 each.
It was the first treaty requiring the elimination of U.S. and USSR -- now Russian -- nuclear weapons systems. According to the treaty, its extension should begin at least a year before the expiration.
Last month, U.S. and Russian representatives in Geneva failed to reach an agreement on the extension of the treaty, but agreed to continue discussion over the issue.
(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2008)