Moscow-Sana
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the United States was making "unrealistic" demands in the negotiations on the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Weapons Limitation, stressing that this scenario would mean the loss of the last mechanism that set the rules in the field of nuclear weapons.
Russia Today quoted Lavrov as saying during his participation in the “Land of Meanings” forum held in Solnechnogorsk today: “I do not know the final outcome of the negotiations, but we have explicitly told the Americans that we need the Treaty on Limiting Offensive Strategic Weapons, which expires next February, and we are interested in extending it. Without any preconditions, but we do not need it to a greater degree than the Americans need. ”
The Russian foreign minister added: "If the Americans put forward unenforceable pre-demands, such as the need for us to convince China, which we will not do because we respect the Chinese position, let this treaty work."
The third version of the Strategic Offensive Control Treaty, which was concluded between Russia and the United States in 2010, is an extension of the agreement signed in 1991 in Moscow, the only working deal between the two parties on arms cuts after Washington's withdrawal on August 2, 2019 from the Intermediate and Short-Range Missile Disarmament Treaty.
Russia has repeatedly affirmed its readiness to extend the Strategic Offensive Limitation Treaty with the United States, but the administration of US President Donald Trump did not want that, while calling for negotiations on a broader tripartite agreement on nuclear weapons that includes China.