MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United States will take measures in response to Russia's alleged violations of the Open Skies Treaty, a State Department official told Sputnik.
"We have long had concerns about Russia’s implementation of the Open Skies Treaty. After repeated, unsuccessful attempts to engage Moscow diplomatically, we have elected to take some reasonable and comparable steps in response to Russia’s non-compliance," the official said.
He added that the US administration was expecting that the measures would change Russia’s calculus and encourage the country to comply with its obligations under the treaty.
The official also stressed that the US was ready to reverse these measures at any time, should Russia come back into compliance with its Open Skies Treaty obligations.
Same day, Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov countered that all complaints should be handled professionally in compliance with the treaty.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 and entered into force on January 1, 2002. It became one of the major confidence-building and arms-control measures in Europe after the Cold War. The treaty has established a system of observation flights over the states party to the accord in order to gather information about their military forces and activities.
