The United States wanted to discuss arms control with Russia and China without conditions
Washington is ready to conduct bilateral arms control negotiations with Russia and China right now and without preconditions, US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at an open debate in the Security Council of the world organization.
All they have to do is say “yes”
Last March, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law suspending Moscow's participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). At the same time, Moscow stated that it plans to comply with the restrictions within the framework of the agreement.
New START, or START III, is a treaty between Russia and the United States that entered into force in 2010. Under its terms, countries must reduce their nuclear arsenals to 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine- and heavy-bomber ballistic missiles, 1,550 warheads and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers.
Russia responded to US call for dialogue on arms
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov assessed Moscow's readiness to negotiate with Washington on arms control.
President Vladimir Putin has previously spoken about the possibility in the current conditions of negotiations with a discussion of the entire range of security topics
Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Grigory Karasin, in turn, noted that the United States Permanent Representative to the UN should use diplomatic channels to call on Moscow and Beijing for dialogue.
In his opinion, “all this smacks of some kind of propaganda campaign.” “I think if he [постпред США при ООН] a professional or there are professionals around him, they understand what I mean,” Karasin emphasized.
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The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the American authorities are practicing hypocrisy and demagoguery, offering Moscow a dialogue on arms control on its own terms.
Representatives of the department stated that the position of the Russian side on this issue has not changed and noted that they are ready to discuss issues of security and stability “only in a single complex and with an emphasis on those aspects that directly affect the security interests” of Russia.
In the meantime, we are invited to conduct dialogue exclusively on US terms and only on issues that are of interest to Washington
The Foreign Ministry named the condition for Russia to comply with the New START restrictions
Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow will comply with the limits under the Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms if the American authorities do not make sense of this task.
At this stage, we do not believe that in the context of New START it is time to look beyond the 2026 horizon. For now, we are focusing on the task of maintaining the quantitative indicators of strategic offensive weapons at the levels established by the treaty, within the limits of its validity
In his opinion, the situation around the agreement should be analyzed closer to its expiration date in 2026. He added that it is difficult to assess the status of the agreement today.
In October 2023, Ryabkov said that a dialogue between Moscow and Washington on resuming Russia’s participation in the implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is possible if the White House policy changes.
There will be no such dialogue until the United States demonstrates in practice its readiness to change its fundamentally hostile course towards the Russian Federation
The Foreign Ministry previously stated that the US’s hostile course towards deliberately undermining Russia’s national security was the reason for Moscow’s decision to suspend START III.
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