Moscow. September 29. INTERFAX - The Russian side has referred a number of questions to Washington in connection with the creation of a new AUKUS security partnership, and plans to address questions also to colleagues from Australia and the UK, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
"The topic of AUKUS is not on the agenda (of the upcoming negotiations between the Russian Federation and the United States on strategic stability in Geneva), it will be in the background, but AUKUS, as such, undoubtedly reminds us of how easily, "at ease" our American colleagues treat those regimes in the field of nonproliferation, to which they always declare their commitment and urge others to firmly follow," Ryabkov said.
"We have a number of questions in connection with the creation of AUKUS, which we have already handed over to the American side. We will ask them to our Australian colleagues, we are in the process of voicing them to our British colleagues," the deputy minister stressed.
He noted that, "among other things, these issues include such an aspect as the hypothetical transfer of ship fuel with 90% enrichment correlates with non-proliferation requirements, as it correlates with Australia's obligations under the safeguards agreement with the IAEA, under the additional protocol to the safeguards agreement."
"We will deal with this," Ryabkov summed up.
