MOSCOW. March 23 (Interfax) - All resources for further bilateral nuclear arms reductions between Russia and the United States have been exhausted for now, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We are ready to discuss the issue, considering that the need to make this process multilateral has been increasingly relevant," Lavrov said in a lecture at the Russian General Staff's Military Academy.
"The resources for bilateral reductions [together with the United States] have actually been exhausted," he said.
The time to fully abandon nuclear weapons has not come so far, he said.
"The effort to compel nuclear powers to abandon nuclear weapons has been stepped up lately. It is absolutely clear that the time to do so has not come," the minister said.
"We are ready to discuss options for further phased reductions of nuclear capabilities, but only if every factor determining strategic stability rather than the mere quantity of strategic offensive weapons is taken into account," Lavrov said.