Tbilisi, with support from the United States, sabotages the multilateral Open Skies Treaty by not allowing Russian observation flights to be conducted in Georgian airspace, Vladimir Yermakov, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2018) Tbilisi, with support from the United States, sabotages the multilateral Open Skies Treaty by not allowing Russian observation flights to be conducted in Georgian airspace, Vladimir Yermakov, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said on Tuesday.
Since 2012, Georgia has repeatedly banned Russian observation missions from being carried out in its airspace under the treaty, citing Moscow's refusal to permit observation flights near the Russian border with the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
"The ball is now in the court of our Georgian colleagues and those countries which allowed such a behavior, including the United States. Because Georgia would never behave in such a way on its own. Only by feeling support, or at least permission, Georgia is undermining such an important treaty," Yermakov told reporters at a briefing.
The diplomat added that Russia made a compromise when it turned a blind eye on Georgia's ban, which was a violation of the treaty, and hoped that the observation missions would continue.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in 1992 and became one of the measures to build confidence among its signatories. It has been operating since 2002 and allows participating countries to openly collect information on each other's military forces and activities.
The treaty covers most NATO member states as well as Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden, and Finland. As a rule, flights of Russia and NATO member states are conducted on a reciprocal basis.
