ending a decades-old moratorium, a senior official said Tuesday. New START, the last treaty between the United States and Russia that limited deployment of nuclear warheads, expired this month as US President Donald Trump called for a new agreement that also includes China.

Christopher Yeaw, the assistant secretary of state for arms control and nonproliferation, indicated that Trump was serious when he said in October, without giving details, that the United States would resume nuclear testing. "As the president has said, the United States will return to testing on a -- quote -- 'equal basis,'" Yeaw said at the Hudson Institute, a think tank. "But equal basis doesn't mean we're going back to Ivy Mike-style atmospheric testing in the multi-megaton range, as some arms control folks would have you believe, hyperventilating about this issue," he said, referring to a massive 1952 thermonuclear detonation in the South Pacific. "Equal basis, however, presumes a response to a prior standard. Look no further than China or Russia for that standard," he said.

He did not announce timing, saying Trump would make a decision, but added that any test would be at a "level playing field." "We're not going to remain at an intolerable disadvantage," he said. China's nuclear arsenal remains far smaller than those of Russia and the United States but it has been growing quickly. China has publicly rejected calls to enter negotiations on a new three-way treaty. (Bssnews)