Moscow Concerned Over US' Tendency to Blame Moscow for INF Treaty Talks Failures

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In February, US media reported that Russia had deployed nuclear cruise missiles in violation of the INF Treaty. In March, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva said in a congressional testimony that the United States aims to "look for leverage points" seeking Russia's compliance with the treaty.

"We cannot but be concerned about the ongoing tendency from the US side to blame us for various failures in the process of normalizing our dialogue or eliminating the existing problems. It is especially about the INF Treaty, regarding which we have just heard a new portion of accusations," Ryabkov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly said that Moscow was in full compliance with the INF treaty. According to Lavrov, Moscow had its own concerns over Washington's compliance with the INF Treaty and that the Russian side had repeatedly called on US partners to substantially discuss the most controversial points related to the agreement's implementation.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. Russia is a party to the treaty as the Soviet Union's successor state. Within the framework of the deal, the two sides agreed to destroy and not to further develop ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that have a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (310-3,410 miles). Since then, both Moscow and Washington have repeatedly accused each other of violations of the bilateral agreement.