The State Department has notified Russia that the Biden Administration has decided against bringing the U.S. back into the Open Skies Treaty after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of it in 2019. According to a report in the Associated Press, unnamed State Department officials said that the Biden Administration has completed a review of the U.S. withdrawal following which Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman notified Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov of the U.S. decision to not return to the treaty. In response to the Trump decision, Moscow had already begun procedures for Russian withdrawal from the treaty, a decision ratified by the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. The measure was waiting for action from the Federation Council (the upper house of the bicameral legislature). Though the treaty has some 30 other signers, it’s a dead letter without the U.S. and Russia.
Ryabkov, this morning, called the U.S. decision yet another political error by Washington. “The United States has made another political mistake, dealing one more blow to the European security system. We gave them [the Americans] a chance, but they failed to take it,” he said, reported TASS. “They continue to circulate fallacies about Russia’s alleged violations of the treaty, which is completely absurd. It’s useless to repeat our position, those willing to find out about it can do so easily, but the fact is that no one in Washington is willing to do that,” Ryabkov emphasized.
A U.S. Department of State spokesperson confirmed to TASS on May 27 that the United States did not plan to rejoin the Treaty on Open Skies “given Russia’s failure to take any actions to return to compliance.” The spokesperson said that “Russia’s behavior, including its recent actions with respect to Ukraine, is not that of a partner committed to confidence-building.”
