US officials strive for new START

A bipartisan group of 30 former and current US security officials has urged the Senate to ratify the Russian-American nuclear START treaty.

The deal was signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in April.

It slashes the strategic nuclear arsenals of the two countries by nearly a third.

Joseph Cirincione, the President of the Ploughshares Fund – an organization focused on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction – says ratification won't be easy, but it will benefit the whole world.

“There will be problems ratifying the treaties. There are some in the Duma and in the US Senate that still cling to the Cold War doctrines – these conservatives from both countries still want to maintain large US arsenals, but they are a minority,” Cirincione told RT. “I believe that the broad and growing consensus in both countries is that we had to proceed step-by-step to reduce and eventually eliminate these weapons.”