U.S. has proposed offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Moscow.
Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday as the 45th U.S. president, said this on Monday during an interview with The Times of London in Washington.
He also criticised previous U.S. foreign policy.
Trump described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as possibly the gravest error in the history of the U.S. and akin to “throwing rocks into a beehive”.
He raised the prospect of the first big nuclear arms control agreement with Moscow since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by President Barack Obama in 2010.
“They have sanctions on Russia let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia.
“For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it.
“But Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit,’’ he said.
Trump during the interview also promised to seek to improve relations with Moscow in spite criticism that he was too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The U. S. and Russia are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the latest published assessment by the U.S. State Department stated that the U.S. has 1,367 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic missiles and bombers, and Russia has 1,796 such deployed warheads.
Under the 2010 New START treaty, Russia and the U.S. agreed to limit the number of long-range, strategic nuclear weapons they can deploy. (Reuters/NAN)
