Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday there were no signals that the United States is ready to resume negotiations with Russia on strategic stability.
“This issue depends entirely on the choice that Washington will make. We had neither before, nor after the decision to postpone the session of the bilateral consultative commission [on New START] seen any signals, signs that the American side is showing interest in resuming such a dialogue,” Ryabkov said, as quoted by Sputnik news agency.
On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik the meeting of the Russian-US bilateral consultative commission on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in Cairo, scheduled for November 29 to December 6, will not take place, and will be postponed to a later date.
“I emphasize that this is not a cancellation, but a postponement. After some time, we will offer the Americans new dates. But it will not happen instantly,” Ryabkov stressed.
It is unlikely that the consultations will take place before the end of the year, the Russian diplomat added.
“And now it is premature to say how and when we will make these new proposals and what time period we will ultimately focus on,” he said, noting that there will be a pause before the next meeting.
The diplomat added that the US wanted to discuss only the issue of resuming inspections at the meeting while other issues were a priority for Moscow.
“We saw, up to the moment when the postponement of the session was announced and after it became public, the focus by the Americans exclusively on the topic of resuming inspections under the New START. Meanwhile, for us, the priority has been and remains the solution of other issues,” Ryabkov told reporters.
Source: Sputnik
