MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2019) Russia is not in talks with the United States on a new bilateral meeting concerning strategic stability, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Friday.
Christopher Ford, the US assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, told the Senate on Tuesday that Washington was discussing with Moscow a mutually acceptable date to hold a strategic security dialogue. He said he expected it to happen "in the very near future."
"I am not going to attend any consultations with the US. We have no preparations going on," Ryabkov said in response to Sputnik's request to comment on Ford's remarks.
He denied that the US administration had officially contacted Russia and rejected Ford's allegation as "blabbing, a waste of breath, an attempt to sell something they do not have to a wider audience, including people outside the US."
Several senior Pentagon officials testified to the Senate in the past days on the outlooks for extending the New START arms control deal, which is set to expire in February 2021. It is the last such pact still in force between Russia and the US after Washington pulled out of the INF treaty.
