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US-Russia nuclear arms control meet ends without result |
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June 21, 2000 OSLO (AP) - A high-level meeting between the United States and Russia on arms control ended Tuesday with no immediate comment from either side on the outcome.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and his Russian counterpart Georgy Mamedov held closed-door talks in the Norwegian capital on Monday and Tuesday. The meetings were not announced in advance. The two talked about the START II arms limitation treaty, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and issues raised in a summit between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month, Russian Embassy spokesman Vitaly Agafonov said.
"That is all we can say," Agafonov told The Associated Press."They agreed not to make statements."
The U.S. embassy in Oslo said it was not immediately clear whether the American delegation would issue a statement. A touchy issue for the two senior officials was America's proposed missile shield, which the Clinton administration says would only defend the United States from missile attacks by so-called rogue states.
Moscow sharply opposes the plan and has refused any amendments to the ABM treaty that would be required to allow its implementation. Russia also has suggested extending any missile shield to include the rest of NATO and Russia.
Going into the meeting with Mamedov on Monday, Talbott, who is Clinton's top adviser on Russia, said there was plenty of room for more cooperation between the United States, Russia and others on missile defense.
Putin and Clinton failed to reach agreement on the issue during their Moscow summit, but they signed a statement of principles that committed the two countries to intensify discussions on the ABM treaty and on further reductions of strategic forces.
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