MOSCOW. Sept 10 (Interfax) - The United States calling for non-strategic nuclear weapons to be included in future agreements with Russia is unacceptable, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday.
"With regard to 'all warheads:' we believe that, for all the importance of the warhead topic as such, paramount attention should still be paid to delivery vehicles, i.e. carriers. The position over non-strategic nuclear weapons the way it is being advanced by Americans is unacceptable for us. One should start differently. In fact, the prospects of a talk on this topic are more than vague," Ryabkov said in an interview with Interfax commenting on the recent remarks by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Bonnie Jenkins, who said in particular that any future agreement should cover all nuclear warheads, including non-strategic nuclear weapons.
Speaking of a possible number and mandate of working groups which could be formed in the framework of the bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue, Ryabkov said there was no such agreement yet and that "this issue is fairly complicated. Complicated because, as they say in that cartoon: how you name the ship, so she will sail. In this particular instance, both the pace of moving forward and the chances of attaining the result will largely depend on topics covered by the working groups.
"The Americans, too, are perfectly aware of it and have been paying much attention to this aspect. I don't think we'll be able to make any announcement in this respect until an in-person meeting has been held in the last days of September, though this may well be something to strive for. But one issue would lead to others," Ryabkov said.
Speaking of the nature of potential future agreements with the U.S., he said the way Russia sees it, this could "a legally binding document, maybe not one but several texts. Both legally and politically binding, should both sides deem such an option to be more preferable."
The diplomat noted that Moscow was "taking seriously U.S. signals that there might and, most likely, will be problems around the ratification of a hypothetical new agreement. And such ratification will be necessary so long as this hypothetical agreement talks about the issues of arms control and U.S. national security, well, and ours too, of course."
"Ideally, we would, naturally, want all our agreements with the U.S. to take on a maximally binding, i.e. legally binding, form," Ryabkov said.
"What I would like to stress from the off, right at the current stage when we are nowhere near this sort of issues, is that any administration in Washington has a huge political, organizational and bureaucratic resource for a majority it needs in Senate to be formed, namely, the two-thirds required for the ratification of relevant agreements. As a rule, references to problems with the Senate are testament that the administration itself does not have enough political will," the deputy minister said.