Russian, US presidential aids discuss START in Singapore

WASHINGTON. November 16. KAZINFORM. Presidential assistants Sergei Prikhodko and James Jones discussed an intermediate agreement on the reduction of strategic offensive armaments in Singapore on Sunday, U.S. National Security Council Senior Director for Russia Mike McFaul said; Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.

"Mr. Prikhodko, by the way, met with General Jones today earlier in the day to talk about that, as well. It's more of a technical issue. It will be to continue -- but we haven't -- need to be clear, we don't have an agreement yet," he said. "There's no interruption. And the key thing there is verification."

McFaul was unable to say when the agreement might be ready.

"I can't tell you because we don't have the agreement yet, and it will depend I think a lot upon when we get the new START treaty. Those things will go together, right? So I just would say, we don't see any gaps coming up down the road, in terms of one -- with this bridging agreement, the notion of a bridge, as it leads to somewhere -- it leads to the other agreement, right? So depending on when that timing is, that's when we'll get there," he said; Kazinform cites Itar-Tass.