Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes that the United States is well aware of Moscow’s position on strategic offensive weapons and missile defence.
Lavrov believes that the reduction of strategic offensive weapons should be directly linked to the resolution of the problems associated with American plans to deploy a missile defence system in Eastern Europe.
“Naturally, such a link is necessary,” the minister said on Saturday.
“The missile defence – strategic offensive weapons link was stated in the London statement” made by the presidents of Russia and the United States at their first meeting in the British capital earlier this year.
Lavrov recalled that Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama agreed to work on a new START treaty and continue the discussion on missile defence, and instructed their governments to take into account the interconnection between the two issues.
“They [the presidents] committed it to paper and approved it,” Lavrov said.
He noted that all of the earlier agreements on strategic offensive weapons between Russia and the U.S. had worked within the framework of such interconnection.
However the two countries are for the first time working on a new START treaty when the ABM Treaty no longer exists, and the U.S. has stated its intention to deploy a missile defence system in Europe.
Lavrov also said that the new U.S. administration “has made a pause in its actions to deploy the missile defence in order to review the situation”.
