MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) - Moscow and Washington will have no missile and nuclear arms deals left unless they resolve the New START problem, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax in an interview.
"There will be no practical agreements regarding reductions and limitation of missiles and nuclear weapons left between Russia and the United States unless we find a solution to the New START problem," Ryabkov said.
"Speaking of timeframes and deadlines, this is not so much the question of procedures and management - how many weeks or months we need to complete domestic procedures if we agree to extend the deal with the U.S. - as the question of meaning," he said.
The problem of "artificial exclusion of a substantial part of U.S. strategic delivery vehicles from total numbers" has yet to be solved, Ryabkov said.
"We are prioritizing the issue. U.S. representatives have publicly pointed to flaws of the New START in the context of the United States' viewpoint but they are ignoring the obvious: if the treaty was composed that way, the main task is to fix problems arising from its implementation and existence the way it was composed, signed, and ratified," he said.
"We can give any response we want to U.S. colleagues. For instance, we can say that the New START's preamble declares the unbreakable bond between strategic offensive and defensive weapons. However, it would not be quite right for us to say that the New START contains mistakes and flaws because it has no provisions limiting U.S. missile defense. A logical answer to such a statement would be: why did you sign the document in that case?" Ryabkov said.
"So, we tell the Americans that, instead of referring to flaws, they should get down to business and focus on the problem they have created by violating the treaty and artificially excluding this many of their delivery vehicles from total numbers," he said.