Russia sent a message to the United States earlier this week. They postponed indefinitely the planned meeting in Cairo over Nov. 29-Dec. 6 for the Bilateral Consultative Commission under the US-Russia New START Treaty to deal with the revival of both sides’ ability to conduct verification inspections. Though the matter was of significant concern to the Russians, they chose to address the elephant in the room, the looming strategic confrontation and the refusal of the United States to recognize Russian security concerns at their borders. The message: Why meet over real, but secondary matters, when the people you are to talk with are demonstrating nothing but bad faith?
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov took to RT TV last night to pursue the matter. He repeated and highlighted that the reason: “Russia decided to postpone the already scheduled meeting of the commission, which was to be held in Cairo. We did this because we could no longer ignore the actions the U.S. is taking around Ukraine, they are only escalating tensions.” The U.S. is only adding fuel to the fire. “But when the U.S. decides to resume a dialogue on strategic security, we will be ready.”