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RIA Novosti
Russia and the United States should establish a dialogue on the Treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles such instruction will be given, said the Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“We talked about the need to establish professional and depoliticised, pragmatic dialogue on the Treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles. I thought we had an understanding from the Secretary of state, and instructions to our experts will be given” , — Lavrov told reporters after meeting with U.S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson.
The INF Treaty prohibits parties from possessing ballistic missiles, land-based and cruise missiles with a range of from 500 to 5.5 thousand kilometers. Russia and the United States periodically put forward mutual accusations of violating INF Treaty, signed in 1987.
The Russian foreign Ministry said earlier that Moscow is seriously concerned about the use of baseless data for the INF Treaty as a pretext for a campaign about possible retaliatory measures against Russia. The Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Russian leadership has repeatedly confirmed its adherence to the obligations under the INF Treaty and ” any wrongdoing on our part.” He noted that “the United States claim otherwise, but provide no specific information that could be checked to clarify the situation”. The Minister of foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation also stressed that Moscow “has very serious questions to US about some “liberties” with the implementation of the Treaty by the Americans themselves.