Moscow, 03.08. (Prensa Latina) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assured today that they had not received a call from the United States to resume negotiations on the Start III (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement.
“They have a habit of saying things into the microphone and then forgetting about it. We were not asked to resume negotiations,” the foreign minister said at a news conference in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, where he is paying a working visit, according to the foreign ministry.
Lavrov specified that two rounds of talks were held last year, “after which the US side paused and we are still waiting for your proposal to resume them,” he said.
In this regard, last Monday, the President of the Eurasian nation, Vladimir Putin, in a message addressed to the participants of the tenth NPT conference, recalled that Moscow is fulfilling its obligations on arms control and reduction within the framework of bilateral agreements with Washington.
In this regard, US President Joe Biden said in his address to the conference participants that his country was ready to “quickly” negotiate a new arms control framework with Russia to replace Start III, which expires in 2026.
However, the US leader conditioned analysis of the deal on the Ukraine conflict, which he described as an “assault on the fundamental principles of the international order” because Russia must “demonstrate its willingness to resume arms control nuclear work” with Washington.
As for the eventual negotiation process, the White House insists that discussions on the issue must include China, since “it also has responsibilities as a nuclear-armed state.”
In this context, the Russian Foreign Minister emphasized on Wednesday that his country assumes that China will decide for itself whether to participate in the talks when the talks resume. “Americans are very aware of our position,” he concluded.
Start-III is currently the only agreement between Moscow and Washington in the field of nuclear disarmament.
In 2010, this treaty stipulated the reduction of the number of strategic offensive arms deployed in seven years so that the sum of these types of ICBMs, anti-submarine missiles and heavy bombers would not exceed 700.