Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the OSCE Ministerial in Stockholm yesterday, said that he expected that a third round of U.S.-Russia strategic stability talks would begin in early January. “We [Russia and the United States] have a whole process that began after the Geneva summit: a strategic stability dialogue which is held regularly,” Lavrov said, reported TASS. “As far as I understand, a third round is due at the very beginning of 2022.”
He stressed that the Russian delegation would like to take a step forward along the track of the fundamental agreements the Russian and U.S. leaders had achieved at the Geneva summit last June. “The essence of the agreements is whatever the differences there may be, and these are rather deep, Russia and the United States should make a responsible approach, staying aware of the importance of our two countries for global stability and security, including those in the Euro-Atlantic region,” Lavrov said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who leads the Russian delegation at those talks, said in a TV interview that the U.S. and Russia should reach an agreement in the near future on drafting a replacement for the New START treaty. “It’s an open secret that for Russia it would be the best option to agree with Washington in the near future we should get down to drafting a treaty that would replace the existing New START. Also, we should figure out the scope of a future document,” he said. “It goes without saying that it would be extremely important for us to prevent the slide into a missile crisis in the situation that is taking shape in the light of the deployment of U.S. weapons of intermediate and shorter range in Europe, even though not armed with nuclear warheads if Washington and Brussels are to be believed,” he added.
Ryabkov hopes that as the United States moves towards finalizing a review of its own nuclear policy, this issue will become part and parcel of the content of bilateral discussions and the two sides will be able to say with greater certainty what the ultimate aim of their efforts and the final product of their dialogue will be.
