MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Russia and the United States are holding no negotiations on arms control, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.
"We have no dialogue with the United States on arms control, apart from occasional meetings between senior officials on the sidelines of multilateral international events, such as the Conference on Disarmament, the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, and sessions of the UN General Assembly. That’s where our representatives meet," Ryabkov said. "I admit that as the agenda of the current French coordination within the ‘nuclear five’ becomes more specific, new contacts may become possible, but this, again, will happen on the sidelines of international meetings. There is no bilateral dialogue with the United States, although we, of course, pay attention to what US representatives say on these issues, including at the highest level."
According to him, Russia has said that clear and tangible positive changes are needed in the US approach to relations with Moscow.
"The criteria for assessing these changes, including how significant and substantial they are, are being examined by various agencies, while the country’s leadership naturally treats this as a top priority," he said. "We also convey all the necessary signals to the Americans in line with this position; it is well known to them. As before, we oppose Washington’s attempts to cherry-pick from the broad range of issues related to strategic stability and the full set of topics affecting the situation in this area only those that, for whatever short-term or other reasons, seem most interesting to Washington at the moment."
Ryabkov cited as an example the ban on nuclear tests and attempts to bring into international discussions on these matters "approaches that are entirely inconsistent with the provisions laid down in the treaty itself (on the comprehensive nuclear test ban - TASS), which, moreover, has not entered into force largely because Washington has refused to ratify it.
"That is, one thing is connected to another and creates a whole series of problems. And, in principle, as experience of the previous years shows, a comprehensive approach and a view of strategic stability as a concept shaped by a wide variety of factors - especially now, when the role of technologies that did not even exist in the past has grown significantly - are the only acceptable way to look at it. But I am now discussing a purely hypothetical scenario.".