The Russian foreign minister assured that “the willingness to maintain the limits of strategic offensive weapons established in the treaty is nothing more than a gesture of goodwill.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with TASS published on Tuesday that “the US must change its behavior” for Moscow to resume contacts with Washington on participation in the Arms Reduction Treaty. Strategic, also known as START III.
According to Lavrov, the US must “return to civilized principles of interstate relationsincluding those enshrined in the START treaty”, as well as “being guided by the principles of the UN Charter, which establishes the need to respect the sovereign equality of States”. However, now “its actions are directly contrary to these principles,” he said, adding that “a hybrid war has been declared against Russiaand of great magnitude.
“In this situation, with the US applying this policy, I don’t see what changes should occurif not within the American establishment and, of course, within the collective West, which is completely crushed by Washington,” the Russian foreign minister said.
In this context, the senior diplomat expressed the hope that “one day reason prevails, the logic of dialogue prevailsinstead of confrontation, let the balance of interests prevail, and not the solution of its geopolitical problems through hybrid and other types of wars.” “But for now we see no signs that the US is willing to think about the need to return to the origins, consecrated […] in international legal documents,” he concluded.
Likewise, the head of Russian diplomacy assured that Moscow “suspended its participation in the treaty completely” and that “the willingness to maintain the limits of strategic offensive weapons established in the treaty is nothing more than a gesture of goodwill“.
- On February 28, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, signed a law that stipulates suspension of participation of the country in the treaty, within the framework of which the signatory States had committed to reduce their nuclear forces to 700 carriers, 1,550 nuclear warheads and 800 launchers.
- He stressed that the measure will last until Moscow determines how NATO’s joint arsenal will be accounted for. “Before returning to the discussion on this issue, we need to understand what North Atlantic Alliance countries such as France and the United Kingdom are claiming and how we are going to account for their strategic arsenals, that is, the alliance’s full attack potential,” he explained. the mandatary.
Source: RT
