Moscow. March 1. INTERFAX - Russia and the United States have made some progress on the issue of verifying the conversion of strategic offensive arms carriers (START), but no agreements have been reached, work is currently suspended, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
"We have been working on this issue for several years. I will not deny that some progress has been made. But I still can't say that we have moved away from the agreement that has already been reached," Ryabkov told Interfax.
According to him, "it was necessary not just to polish the details, but to make sure that everything works exactly as we assumed it should work, in order to make sure that the ballistic missile launchers of submarines were re-equipped for non-nuclear missions."
"But all this was interrupted, suspended," the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation stressed.
Ryabkov said that "the initiators of all the steps that led to the deterioration of everything related to the treaty (on the reduction of strategic offensive arms - IF) were the United States."
"We have now decided to suspend, based on a combination of factors when it was impossible to act in any other way, in this sense, quantity has turned into quality in a negative sense in Washington's action plan," he said.
