Senate Foreign Relations Committee Moves to Extend START Verification Measures

Senate Gives Obama Team Time to Finish START Follow On - Foreign Policy's The Cable [link]

• The committee moved to allow the administration to extend the verification and inspections regimes for an additional six months -- meaning that U.S. inspectors can stay in Russia and Russian inspectors won't have to leave the United States. The full Senate would still have to pass the measure.
• Meanwhile, the interagency negotiating team led by Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller and the Pentagon's Ted Warner has been shuttling back and forth to Geneva, and the deal of a final agreement is reported to be near completion, with a possible signing when Obama travels to Europe to accept his Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10.
• The Senate is then expected to debate the treaty in early spring. With strong backing from Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the GOP will probably go along but not before eking out concessions from the administration. Senate Republicans will be less willing to go along with the Obama team's promise to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but that won't be on the table anytime soon.

China, US Call for Resumption of North Korea Talks - AFP [link]

• China and the United States want talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme to resume "as soon as possible", US President Barack Obama said Tuesday after talks with his host Hu Jintao.
• "We agreed on the importance of resuming the six-party talks process as soon as possible," Obama said during a joint address by the two leaders to the media after their morning summit.

Resolution on Iran Seems Remote - Laura Rozen in Politico [link]

• As Mohamed ElBaradei, the U.N. atomic energy agency’s outgoing chief, tries to rescue a deal that would transfer much of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, the agency has issued a new report on Iran’s nuclear program that demonstrates how hard it will be to find any near-term resolution.
• “Iran can’t yet take ‘yes’ for an answer,” says former weapons inspector George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The “Iranians also should understand that ElBaradei has helped them, this is his deal, and he’s leaving. ... So I suspect they will soon say, ‘yes, but not quite this,’ and prolong more.”
• Still, the West, too, is not yet ready to give up on negotiations. “The bigger picture is a number of European governments are starting to argue that it’s time to let this thing play out,” said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

ICBMs are the Bomb - Nukes of Hazard [link]

• Chaired by Senators Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) and Michael Enzi (R-Wyoming), the Senate ICBM Coalition is comprised of senators who represent states that host, maintain, or administer ICBM forces and/or operations.
• On November 6, the Coalition released “The Long Pole of the Nuclear Umbrella,” a report that argues in support of maintaining the current U.S. force of 450 ICBMs.
• The key question, however, is whether the United States really needs 450 missiles to preserve the strategic value of its ICBM force – or whether a lesser number will suffice.