Yeltsin sent Clinton a happy birthday telegram on Thursday saying he was pleased that ties were improving and implementing the Cologne agreements would make the world a safer place.
The U.S. delegation chief, John Holum, designate under-secretary of state for arms control and international security, told Reuters on Wednesday the atmosphere at the talks was ``businesslike and productive.''
But the head of the Russian delegation told reporters that Washington's plans to build a new "Star Wars''-style missile defense system could bury the entire arms control framework.
``The arms race could now leap to outer space,'' Interfax news agency quoted Grigory Berdenninikov, director of the arms control department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying.
A statement released by both sides on Thursday following the meetings gave no indication they had come closer on the key issue of U.S. plans to set up an anti-missile shield, which Russia says violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
``The sides presented their approaches to the ABM treaty and to continuing efforts to strengthen it to ensure its viability in the future. Specific proposals were not discussed in the course of the consultations,'' the statement, released by the Foreign Ministry and the U.S. embassy, said.
The 1972 ABM treaty was aimed at banning systems designed to shoot down the other side's missiles. But the United States now plans to build a similar shield to protect itself from the missile programs it fears are being developed by countries like Iran and North Korea.
The Clinton administration says the new system would not violate the treaty, and wants the pact updated to make that clear. Key Republicans in the U.S. Congress call the ABM treaty a Cold-War relic and want to see it scrapped altogether.
But Berdennikov said there was no way Washington could develop the system without violating the treaty.
``We do not see any variant which would allow the U.S. to deploy a national anti-missile defense system and at the same time maintain the ABM treaty,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
``If this takes place, talks on a START-3 treaty will be ruined, as well as the existing START-1 and START-2 agreements,'' he said, referring to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties which have committed the former Cold War foes to cutting their nuclear missile arsenals.
Clinton and Yeltsin signed START-2 in 1993, committing both sides to reduce their stockpiles to 3,500 warheads by 2003. But the treaty has languished since then without the approval of Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament.
The Duma was finally due to ratify it early this year, but abandoned it after NATO began bombing Yugoslavia.
The U.S.-Russian statement said they had agreed to begin full negotiations only after the earlier START-2 treaty is finally ratified by Russia's parliament.
Berdennikov said Russia had proposed that the new treaty call for steep cuts, to 1,500 warheads or below.
advertisement
