WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to suggest he would allow the last arms control treaty with Russia to expire and not accept an offer from Moscow to voluntarily extend the deal, according to remarks released on Thursday.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the two nations could voluntarily maintain the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the New START treaty, which is set to expire on February 5.
“If it expires, it expires,” Trump told the New York Times on Wednesday. “We’ll just do a better agreement.”
Trump said China should be incorporated in any future agreement, according to the newspaper.
Spokespeople for the Russian and Chinese embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The 2010 New START agreement cannot be extended. The treaty provided for one extension and Putin and former U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to roll it over for five years in 2021.
The agreement caps U.S. and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear war heads at 1,550 and their delivery platforms – missiles, aircraft and submarines – at 700.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Jasper Ward in WashingtonEditing by David Ljunggren)
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