Russia, Us Set To Prune Their Strategic Offensive Arms

Russia and the United States will continue to prune their strategic offensive arms, ensuring open control over this process. This was disclosed to reporters in the Kremlin here today by the Russian Federation's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, after negotiations between President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wound up. We are not enemies; we are partners; and we must trust each other, Ivanov went on to say. However, existing arms-control mechanisms were created during the Cold War, he added. At the same time, the current international situation and its future prospects tend to highlight the increasingly greater importance of cooperation in the struggle against terrorism and mass-destruction weapons, Ivanov stressed. According to Ivanov, it was agreed in the course of negotiations between Putin and Rumsfeld and those involving both countries' Defense Ministers that there existed some favourable prospects, and that we could expand such cooperation quickly enough.