Press attaché of the US Embassy in Bratislava Chase Beamer said on Friday, March 19, that it is too early to say whether US President Barack Obama will join his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev in the Slovak capital to sign a new START arms reduction treaty.
"As the START negotiations haven't yet been completed it's too early to speculate on any possible signing date or location," Beamer said, as reported by the TASR newswire. The treaty is intended to supplant the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991.
Medvedev will come to Bratislava for an official visit on April 5-6 to mark the 65th anniversary of the Red Army's liberation of the city towards the end of World War II. Reporters had speculated that Obama might join him to sign the treaty in Bratislava, or alternatively in Prague.
The treaty, to reduce nuclear weapons, could be completed as early as the end of March or early April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this month.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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