Sergey Ryabkov
The administration of US President Donald Trump has decided not to renew the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, START-3). This was stated by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergei Ryabkov, RIA Novosti reports.
“The current US administration has made a decision not to renew the agreement. But they don’t want to, and they don’t need to, ”the Moscow representative replied to the Americans' reluctance to roll over the document on the nuclear arsenal. According to Ryabkov, the United States is not ready to accept Russia's sound arguments and logic.
Earlier, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, assessed the prospects for START-3 in the event that Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden wins the presidential election. According to the diplomat, Biden understands the need to extend the START Treaty.
On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Washington to extend the current START-3 treaty “without any conditions for at least a year, in order to be able to conduct meaningful negotiations on all parameters.” US National Security Assistant Robert O'Brien called it a failure.
START III expires in February 2021, the last arms control treaty in force between Russia and the United States. The agreement was signed in 2010 by the then presidents of Russia and the United States – Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama.
