US expresses interest in discussing arms control, Russia ready to go ahead
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the United States has expressed interest in holding talks with Russia about arms control, months after Washington pulled out of a missile treaty with Moscow.
The top Russian diplomat made the announcement during an online press conference on Tuesday, saying that his American counterpart, Mike Pompeo, had earlier expressed America’s interest to resume talks, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported.
“[US Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo called me couple of weeks ago. I want to discuss this matter with him via a telephone talk in the coming days. [He] touched upon the issue of arms control and strategic stability in general. We welcome the interest of our American partners in this topic as we have long urged them to work on these issues more actively,” Lavrov said.
He added that Moscow was ready to discuss the development of hypersonic weapons with Washington.
However, he said issues about global strategic stability would be discussed by the two sides once the current COVID-19 pandemic was over.
Tensions between the two former Cold War adversaries escalated in early August last year, when Washington formally and unilaterally pulled out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which had banned all land-based missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
Washington alleged at the time that Moscow had first violated the INF by test-firing a missile that had been banned under the pact. Russia denied the allegation and publicly disclosed the specifics of the missile in question to refute the US accusation.
Later that same month, the Pentagon announced that it had tested a type of a ground-launched missile that had been banned under the bilateral pact.
Both Russia and China renewed a warning at the time that the testing of the missile would trigger an arms race.
In September last year, Russia pulled out of the pact.
Moscow recently reportedly upgraded its arsenal with a number of hypersonic missiles, while the US is actively working to develop its own.
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