Russia hopes that the U.S. hasn’t definitively buried the idea of arms control as a means of ensuring national security, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
“We suggest continuing to discuss all these topics, but in a calm atmosphere where we have a few more years, probably five is the maximum. Probably not five is the maximum, the contract says so. But it is also a sufficient time to draw up a text that will be replaced. I still believe that Washington has not definitively buried the very idea of arms control as a means of ensuring national security”, – Ryabkov said in an interview with International Life magazine.
The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction (START 3), signed in 2010, remains the only existing arms limitation treaty between Russia and the United States. The agreement expires in February 2021, and the U.S. administration has not yet announced whether Washington intends to extend it.
Earlier, the U.S. presidential adviser on national security, John Bolton, said that START 3 is unlikely to be extended because it has shortcomings. Russia, for its part, has repeatedly stated that it is ready to discuss it. U.S. President Donald Trump has stated his desire to work out a new trilateral nuclear agreement between Russia, China and the United States. In Beijing, however, this idea was rejected.