The United States has no moral or legal right to blame others for non-compliance with arms control agreements, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“The United States has no legal, political or moral plan to evaluate the implementation of arms control agreements by other states. Appropriate mechanisms of control checking are functioning for this aim, and in some cases specialized international organizations have been created”, – Zakharova said at a briefing.
“Washington’s aspirations to assign this function exclusively to itself have no prospects, cannot be used as an excuse to broadcast any conclusions”, – she said.
According to Zakharova, Moscow again urges its American colleagues to focus on substantive discussions on a wide range of arms control issues.
“Such unreasonable public accusations on the verge of just information aggression often sin with bias, just as this time, and, of course, do not contribute to the search for compromise solutions and the removal of existing concerns”, – Zakharova said.
Earlier, the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation Christopher Ford prepared a review report entitled “Russia’s Compliance with Arms Control Obligations: 1984-2020”. An abridged version of the document was published not long before the Russia-US inter-agency arms control consultations were held on June 22 in Vienna.
The report stated in particular that Russia over the past decades has allegedly approached selectively compliance with arms control obligations, and, in terms of bilateral agreements with Washington, “even sees a potential advantage in violations”.
Russia has repeatedly rejected US claims for violation of certain agreements in the field of arms control, including the START Treaty or the Open Skies Treaty, and pointed to non-compliance with certain provisions of the START field by the United States.