MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th June, 2020) The report of US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Christopher Ford about Russia's "non-compliance" with arms control obligations is biased and aims to cover up own US violations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
Last week, a short version of Ford's report entitled "Russian Arms Control Compliance: A Report Card, 1984-2020" was published by the US State Department before the Russia-US arms control consultations, which were held on June 22 in Vienna. The report states, in particular, that Russia has allegedly approached selectively compliance with arms control obligations over the past decades, and, in terms of bilateral agreements with Washington, even sees a potential advantage in violations.
"In our opinion, the presented estimates are very biased," Zakharova said. "Why is this being done? The goal is obvious � to form a negative view on our country as a kind of malicious violator of international obligations in the field of arms control and, perhaps, to distract the attention of the international community from real steps of the United States to dismantle the system of treaties and agreements in this area created during this time, these decades."
The United States has neither moral nor legal right to blame others for non-compliance with arms control agreements, Zakharova said.
"The United States has no legal, political or moral right to evaluate the implementation of arms control agreements by other states. For this, appropriate verification mechanisms are in place, and in some cases specialized international organizations have been created," she said.
Washington's aspirations to assign this function exclusively to itself have no prospects, and cannot be used as an excuse to present any conclusions, she said.
Moscow again urges its American colleagues to focus on substantive discussions on a wide range of arms control issues, Zakharova said.
