WASHINGTON. May 18 (Interfax) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has highly praised the submission of the Russian-American Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Section 123 Agreement on cooperation in the nuclear energy sector to the U.S. Senate for ratification.
"I am an advocate of this agreement. Regrettably, Georgia stupidly intervened, and Americans and we lost a very beneficial business. If this agreement passes, it will open up good prospects of cooperation in the high-tech sector," Ivanov said at a news conference for Russian reporters at the Russian embassy in Washington on Monday.
All this taken together implies Russia's participation in sanctions against Iran, Ivanov said, adding, "We are close to adopting a UN resolution on Iran."
"New winds are blowing in Russian-American relations," Ivanov continued. "We've been finding a good mutual understanding on many issues. The U.S. administration has been demonstrating its readiness to accept new approaches," he said.
"As a government member responsible for transportation, atomic energy and space, I argued that security problems are important and they do and will continue to unite us as long as our trade cooperation stands at a level of statistical error, which it is at the moment," Ivanov said.
"As far as security goes, real, not imaginary threats come from elsewhere, not from the United States, Europe, or Russia," he said.
"They come from elsewhere and have to do with nonproliferation, terrorism and piracy. Extremism and other real threats are to be found elsewhere, not in the Euro-Atlantic space," said Ivanov.