Russia: future nuke agreements need limits

MOSCOW, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The head of Russia's army said any strategic weapons reduction agreement with the United States must require that weapons stay within national borders.

Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, said Russia wants to preserve portions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- signed by the United States and Soviet Union in 1991 and set to expire in 2009 -- that place limits on nuclear weaponry retained by the countries, Novosti reported Friday.

"Russia deems it necessary to preserve certain provisions of the START treaty (in a new agreement)... especially those that limit the number of nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, and those that prohibit their deployment outside national borders," Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said in an interview with Czech army journal ATM.

Baluyevsky said any new treaty should be a legally binding independent international legal act to ensure transparency of both the Russian and U.S. arsenals.

"The proposed approach would rule out agreements of a declarative nature and make the process of further limitations on strategic offensive weapons efficient and viable," Baluyevsky said.