U.S., Russia may clinch START-III

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JUNE 9. Russia and the United States could reach agreement on a new nuclear arms pact this year, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Igor Ivanov, said on Friday.

``It is possible to reach concrete agreement on START- III as early as this year,'' Mr. Ivanov told a news conference in Moscow. Another round of bilateral consultations on the issue would be held later this month.

Russia is believed to be trying to push START-III in exchange for softening its opposition to U.S. plans to build a National Missile Defence (NMD). However, Mr. Ivanov reiterated Moscow's opposition to the U.S. project.

``We categorically oppose plans for the creation of a U.S. national missile defence system and modifications to the ABM treaty ... which would undermine this document,'' he said.

The two sides failed to resolve their differences over the issue at the Moscow summit last weekend, but Mr. Ivanov suggested some progress had been made. ``After long hesitations the U.S. expressed readiness to consider the possibility of establishing a global system of control over missile non- proliferation,'' Mr. Ivanov said.

The U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, and the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, also agreed to set up a bilateral working group charged with mapping out measures to combat the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan, Mr. Ivanov said.

``A kind of terrorist international is being formed today, with its centre situated in Afghanistan, on the territory controlled by the Taliban,'' he said, adding that the working group would prepare proposals for tackling the terrorist threat through political, economic and other measures.

Putin for N. Korea

Mr. Putin will pay a visit to North Korea as part of Moscow's mounting campaign against the U.S. plan to build the missile defence system.

The Itar-Tass news agency quoted the Kremlin press service as saying Mr. Putin will be the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit Pyongyang. Mr. Putin will also be the first world leader to meet North Korea's leader, Mr. Kim Jong-il. In recent years, Russia's relations with North Korea have been rather cool, as Moscow tried to improve relations with South Korea.

Russian Government sources said Mr. Putin's trip would be tied to his visit to China on the way to the July 21-23 summit in Okinawa of the Group of Eight industrialised countries.

The Pyongyang visit was announced on the heels of the Moscow Summit. Analysts said Mr. Putin's visit would be aimed at dispelling U.S. concerns about the missile programme of North Korea, which is labelled by Washington as a ``rogue state.''

Mr. Ivanov said Mr. Putin did not view North Korea as a ``rogue nation'', and would not seek to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its missile programme.

``President Putin will be visiting a friendly country and he is not going to talk anybody out of anything,'' Mr. Ivanov said, adding the talks would concentrate on bilateral issues and relations between the two Koreas.

However, Mr. Georgy Toloray, deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Asia department, confirmed that in Pyongyang, Mr. Putin would discuss bilateral ``interaction in the current military and strategic situation in the world, in particular in the light of the U.S. plans on ABM.''

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