MOSCOW. June 3 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has disagreed with politicians who think that Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty and the signing of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions resulted from Moscow's concessions.
"They tried to convince us to quit the ABM Treaty together with the United States, but we did not do so, because we had always said it was a necessary document that satisfied us," the minister told the press on Monday.
"When we realized that the ABM Treaty did not satisfy the Americans and they could quit it in accordance with the document, we could do nothing," the minister said. "We could not keep them within the limits of the ABM Treaty. So I regard as unfounded the claims that we have made concessions. We did not give up anything."
Ivanov also disagreed with suppositions that the signing of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions was a concession by Moscow. "Is the non-signing of any treaty with the United States in makes the rules of the game clearer," the minister said.
The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions "defines the mechanism of control and verification of the reduction of strategic offensive armaments," Ivanov said. "START-1, which defines all mechanisms of control on 570 pages, will remain valid in full until 2009, and may be extended."
As for the level of the reduction of strategic offensive armaments defined by the treaty (1,700 to 2,200 warheads by the United States and up to 1,500 warheads by Russia - Interfax), Ivanov said, "we do not need the nuclear parity of the Cold War times with the United States."
Asked by Interfax-Military News Agency whether Russia may follow the American example and store nuclear weapons and missiles instead of dismantling them, Ivanov said, "we are free to act as we please." "The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions says nothing about the possibility of storing nuclear warheads and missiles," he said.