News

DATE=7/27/1999 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=U.S. - RUSSIA WRAP (L) NUMBER=2-252226 BYLINE=DEBORAH TATE DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: The United States and Russia have agreed to open talks next month in Moscow on a new round of cuts in their nuclear weapons arsenals. The announcement came at the end of a day of meetings between President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin here in Washington. Correspondent Deborah Tate reports from the White House. Text: The talks on a new Start Three nuclear arms treaty will begin next month even though the Russian Duma has yet to approve the 1993 Start Two treaty. Speaking at a joint news conference with the Prime Minister, Vice President Gore renewed the administration's call on the Duma to move forward with ratification. But with the Russian Parliament still angered by Nato's bombing campaign over Yugoslavia, Mr. Gore acknowledged lawmakers may not be in any hurry to approve Start Two. // Gore actuality // Because of the tensions we have so recently survived in the relationship, you are not going to expect the kind of action in the Duma that we are talking about next week. // end act // Mr. Stepashin, speaking through a translator,vowed to press for ratification later this year. // Stepashin actuality // We will try to bring Start Two to the forum again in the fall of this year. // end act // Under Start Two,the United States and Russia would each reduce its arsenal of long-range nuclear warheads to as many as 35-hundred. Under Start Three, each country would limit its number of warheads to between two-thousand and 25-hundred. Besides Start Three, next month's arms control talks will also consider changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the United States is seeking to allow it to work on an anti-missile system announced by President Clinton in January. Although the announcement of the talks is not a major development - President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in Cologne, Germany last month to move forward with Start Three - it is another step toward improved relations between the two countries in the aftermath of Nato's bombing raids on Yugoslavia. Mr. Stepashin also discussed the progress of economic reform in Russia with Mr. Gore and Mr. Clinton. The International Monetary Fund is to evaluate the success of that reform Wednesday, when it will decide whether to approve a four-point-five billion dollar loan to Russia. signed) NEB/DAT/PT 27-Jul-1999 20:24 PM LOC (28-Jul-1999 0024 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .