The Pentagon accuses Russia of unwillingness to start a dialogue on armaments.

US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons Programs Guy Roberts, who spoke at the nuclear deterrence summit in Washington, said that the United States was ready to hold a dialogue on arms control, but Russia and China, in Washington’s opinion, are not interested. Roberts, in response to a question from RIA Novosti, expressed confidence that multilateral negotiations would be useful.

The Assistant Minister also said that several years ago, while participating in negotiations with Moscow on the subject of counter-armaments, he heard her proposal to give multilateralism to the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missiles. Only Russia and the United States have obligations under the treaty. At the same time, neither China, nor India, nor Pakistan, nor any other country has such obligations.

Russia made a proposal for a multilateral treaty, Roberts recalls, but neither China, nor India, nor Pakistan showed any enthusiasm. They had no desire to negotiate on this topic.

Summing up, the Assistant Minister assured that there is no doubt that the US leadership is interested in an arms control dialogue. But for this we need two partners. However, as Roberts stated, the Russian side doesn’t show any desire for this. China is not enthusiastic about this issue either.

On February 2, as the President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated earlier, the States begin exit procedures from the INF. On this day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian response would be a mirror one, and that Russia also suspends participation in the Treaty. At the same time, Putin stressed that Moscow does not intend to participate in the arms race. As for disarmament, all the proposals of the Russian side remain in force, it is ready for dialogue.