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- WORLD, Page 53World NotesFORMER SOVIET UNIONResetting the Nuclear Clock
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- Since the Soviet Union dissolved before the eyes of an
- astonished world last December, the West has been worrying about
- what will happen to the nuclear weapons scattered among several
- new and potentially unstable states. Last week U.S. officials
- revealed that Washington had been given assurances that all
- strategic missiles in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus would be
- eliminated within seven years, leaving only Russia with missiles
- capable of striking the U.S. Washington, which is developing a
- plan to help the new republics dismantle their nuclear
- arsenals, also disclosed that all tactical nuclear weapons are
- concentrated in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and that by July
- they will be either decommissioned or withdrawn to Russia.
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- Although the Administration considers these agreements to
- be ironclad, Presidents of the Commonwealth of Independent
- States have been jockeying for power since the formation of that
- body, and the lingering fear of Russian dominance may yet make
- the nuclear card a hard one for other republics to discard.
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