MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - Moscow has to withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies as a treaty potentially threatening Russia's national security, given that Washington has quit the treaty and European countries have declined to guarantee that they will not share observation flight data with the United States, Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee head Leonid Slutsky said.
"We've repeatedly called on the other signatories to the treaty to sign a statement stipulating specific legal obligations on the non-disclosure of the information obtained based on the work of Open Skies missions. However, we've never seen this step taken. Under these circumstances, Russia won't tolerate a one-way traffic and won't risk its national security interests," Slutsky said on Telegram on Friday.
Slutsky described Russia's decision to start procedures to withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies as "an appropriate response" to the United States withdrawal from it and its "European partners' reluctance to guarantee Russia they won't share information on observation flights over Russian territory with the U.S."
Russia has repeatedly urged the other signatories to the Treaty on Open Skies to sign a legally-binding statement guaranteeing that they would not share the data obtained during flights over Russian territory with the U.S., but this has never been done, he said.
"I regret to acknowledge that this is a forced countermeasure. The violation of the Treaty on Open Skies integrity undermines confidence concerning security among all of its signatories," Slutsky said.
Yury Shvytkin, deputy head of the State Duma Defense Committee, told Interfax that, in the absence of guarantees from European partners, no status quo can be preserved, and therefore Russia had to withdraw from the treaty.
"The U.S. was the initiator of the withdrawal from the Treaty on Open Skies, and we didn't receive guarantees from the treaty signatories that they would not pass data they are entitled to by virtue of access to the Treaty to the United States of America. Definitely, this is unacceptable to us, and we can't allow this," Shvytkin told Interfax on Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had reported earlier on Friday that Moscow was beginning internal procedures to withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies.
The U.S. quit the treaty in 2019, which made it problematic for Russia to keep being its signatory. In particular, Moscow insisted that the European member states guarantee that the data they collect during observation flights over Russian territory would not be shared with the U.S., while Europe reasoned that the treaty already envisioned this obligation and it did not require any additional regulation.