SOCHI. June 23 (Interfax) - Parallel unilateral statements are a possible form of potential arms control agreements, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday.
"There are numerous indications of an upcoming profound rethinking of arms control methodology, including ways to formalize possible future agreements. The moment has long since arrived when the Senate of the U.S. Congress, due to certain internal reasons, actually refuses to ratify any international documents that are not based on Washington's imposition of unilateral approaches on other countries, [which are] beneficial only to Washington," Ryabkov told reporters in Sochi.
He was asked whether arms control agreements could be signed the same way the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty was concluded in 2002.
"Since we're talking about agreements in an area which implies a strict balance of interests and the absence of unilateral concessions on our part, a chance for such hypothetical documents to emerge in the U.S. Senate, irrespective of its composition, is close to zero, from my point of view. The thing is that we also have to think about ways of formalizing future agreements," he said.
"In this case, the formulas mentioned by us before, including parallel unilateral statements, are acceptable. Strictly speaking, this is already happening. As you know, both Moscow and Washington have declared their intention to comply with keynote limitations under the New START Treaty essentially in a unilateral manner," Ryabkov said.