US and Russia halve nuclear warheads

The United States of America and the Russian Federation have agreed to cut the number of nuclear warheads they have by between 3,000 and 3,500.

US President George Bush, who leaves office this month, and his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin, signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty - Start II in Moscow.

Currently each side has about 10,000 warheads and Start II marks the biggest reduction ever agreed.

In addition, sea-based weapons will be cut to 1,750 each and all land-based multiple-warhead missiles will be eliminated.

Mr Bush said the treaty offers "for parents and children, a future free from fear", and Mr Yeltsin called it "a treaty of hope".

'Russia's might'

The treaty means that by 2003, threequarters of the nuclear warheads possessed by both countries at the start of the 1990s will have been destroyed.

Mr Yeltsin believes Start II shows that Russia has abandoned the arms race.

"I think it important for Russia's might as a great power to be determined not by the quantity of missiles but by the living standards of its citizens, the development of culture, education and national traditions," he said.

Mr Yeltsin admitted the treaty will meet opposition before it is ratified in the Russian parliament.

The US Congress also has to agree to Start II, as well as the parliaments of the former Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan where nuclear weapons are still held.

Mr Yeltsin has been criticised for making too many concessions to the US, by relinquishing all of Russia's land-based SS-18 missiles with multiple warheads - the core of its strike capability.

By contrast the US appears to have kept a tactical advantage by agreeing to halve its submarine-based warheads, which form the heart of its nuclear arsenal.

Start II builds on previous treaties which helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

Start I was signed by Mr Bush and former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

It pledged to reduce the number of nuclear warheads by roughly half to 6,000 on each side and long-range missile launchers to 1,600 for each country.

With Start II, the US nuclear arsenal will return to levels not seen since the early 1960s and in Russia since the mid-1970s.