MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. secretary of state's upcoming visit to Russia in unlikely to lead to a resumption in deadlocked relations between the two countries, a Moscow-based expert said on Wednesday.
Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center for International Security Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said he did not expect any formal agreements to be signed during Hillary Clinton's visit in October.
"No accords can be expected, but ... this meeting will help solve some outstanding problems," he said.
Arbatov said relations between the two countries had fallen to a very low point, and that it was difficult to "overcome this inertia."
"Intensive efforts are needed to bring about an improvement in relations," he said, adding that Clinton's visit could provide a basis for tackling specific issues, but it would "not break the deadlock" that U.S.-Russian relations had reached by now.
Arbatov said there would be two principal items on the agenda - the arms reduction treaty and U.S. military transits to Afghanistan via Russia.
Moscow has said it hopes to hold before December at least five rounds of talks with the United States on a new arms reduction deal to replace the existing START-1 treaty.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama agreed in July in Moscow on the outline of a final deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1), which expires on December 5.
The START 1 treaty obliges Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.
