Today marks the five-year anniversary of the New START Treaty, a landmark arms control agreement that has put both the United States and Russia on track to reduce our nuclear stockpiles to their lowest levels since the era of Eisenhower and Khrushchev. I am proud to have supported this Treaty when I was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, working with my colleague and friend, Ranking Member Richard Lugar on this historic accord that continues the great tradition of responsible nuclear arms reductions that began during the Cold War.

New START is more important now than when it went into effect. It gives us the confidence and level of oversight we need – and could not otherwise have – by allowing U.S. inspectors unprecedented access to Russian nuclear facilities. New START continues to be an area of cooperation and continued dialogue between the United States and Russia.

New START furthers our goals to promote trust, transparency, predictability, and stability. We expect the United States and Russia to meet the Treaty’s central limits when they take effect on February 5, 2018, and continue to call on Russia to join talks on further reductions to our nuclear arsenals. I share President Obama’s strong belief that our two countries, which ushered in the era of nuclear arms, have a special responsibility to lead the world beyond it.