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Russian inspectors to make Open Skies flight over Sweden

The flight will be made by a Russian Antonov airplane from the airfield Uppsala on the previously agreed route

MOSCOW, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - The group of Russian inspectors jointly with their fellow inspectors from Great Britain and Northern Ireland will make an observation flight over Sweden on Wednesday, head of the national centre for the reduction of the nuclear threat Sergei Ryzhkov told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

“The flight will be made by a Russian Antonov airplane from the airfield Uppsala on the previously agreed route, the maximum distance of which is 1,700 kilometres,” Ryzhkov noted.

The airplane will be carrying specialists of three countries, who will be controlling the use of avionics and observation systems under the current agreements.

The Treaty of the Open Skies was signed in 1992. As many as 34 countries are signatory nations in the treaty. The observation flights are made over Russia, the United States, Canada and European countries. The main tasks of the Open Skies regime are the development of transparency, the assistance to observance over the fulfilment of the agreements over the arms control, broader capacities to avert crises and regulate the emergency situations within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other international organizations.

In the future the signatories will consider a possible spreading of the Open Skies regime on new fields of cooperation, including environment protection.