MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. The United Kingdom has received Russian President Vladimir Putin’s missile moratorium offer, British Ambassador to Moscow Laurie Bristow told reporters on Friday, adding that London shared NATO countries’ position on the matter.
"We have received the letter from President Putin. The position of the UK is exactly the same as the position of all other member states of NATO, which is that it would have been good if the moratorium would have been called on the deployment of these missiles but the problem is that Russia develops and deploys missiles and therefore that was what caused the problem to come about," the British ambassador said in response to a TASS question.
News came in September that Putin had sent letters to the leaders of a number of countries, including NATO members and China, calling for a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range missiles to Europe and other regions of the world.
According to NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu, the Alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg received the message but did not find it "credible." "Unless and until Russia verifiably destroys the SSC-8 system [the NATO reporting name for Russia’s 9M729 missile - TASS], this moratorium on deployments is not a real offer," Lungescu said.