Washington's hasty negative reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty showed its reluctance to ensure security through negotiations, Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said, commenting on US Special Representative for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea's recent statement on the matter
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2020) Washington's hasty negative reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty showed its reluctance to ensure security through negotiations, Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said, commenting on US Special Representative for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea's recent statement on the matter.
On Wednesday, Billingslea wrote on Twitter that the US applauds its German allies for Berlin's pushback against Moscow's initiative to de-escalate the situation in Europe in light of the INF treaty's demise.
"Normally if a proposal doesn't correspond to your views you make a counter proposal provided, of course, that there is a positive political will. Hasty negative reaction of NATO, German and US officials means the lack of willingness to take care of security through negotiations," Ulyanov wrote on Twitter late on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Putin said that Russia was prepared to refrain from deploying 9M729 missiles to the European part of the country if NATO reciprocated. Putin also offered mutual verification measures concerning Aegis Ashore missile systems with Mk-41 launchers at US and NATO bases in Europe and Russia's 9M729 missiles in the Kaliningrad Region.
Berlin, which was among the first to respond to the initiative, cited NATO's position that Russian ideas on the INF Treaty are not credible. Commenting on the issue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik that those trying to "ignore" and even "brush off" Putin's initiatives related to the INF showed "quite an irresponsible approach to ensuring the European security."
