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Russia Offers to Hold More Strategic Stability Talks With U.S.

Monday, October 06, 2008 6:59 PM

(Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English) tracking

MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax) - Russia is open to more talks with the United States in a format that brings together the Russian foreign and defense ministers with the U.S. secretary of state and defense secretary in the same meetings, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says in an interview to be published on Tuesday.

Lavrov told Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta that all points of dispute, such as the United States' plans to deploy elements of its missile defense in Eastern Europe and all issues of strategic offensive armaments, should be raised at such talks.

Lavrov mentions that Russia has repeatedly expressed anxiety over the U.S. plans to place missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The United States "has promised, having acknowledged our concerns, to hand us over a list of confidence- and transparency- building measures that would make it possible to lessen these concerns without eliminating them," the minister says.

"We are still waiting," he says.

START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) I is another issue that needs to be on the agenda for "two plus two" meetings, Lavrov argues. START I expires in December 2009, "after which there will be no mechanism of control of the entire system of strategic forces," he says.

"It has been promised to us that the American side, aware of the entire seriousness of the current situation, will formulate proposals of some kind that would reflect synchronized Russian and U.S. positions on the maintenance of strategic stability after the expiry of the START I treaty. Such promises, by the way, have been given us more than once. Last time, a senior State Department official said that the proposals would be handed over in September. We are still waiting," Lavrov says.

"We will have to discuss all that you and I are talking about now. Our American partners are aware of our concerns. And there is no way to avoid such concerns," Lavrov says.