MOSCOW, September 9. /TASS/. The security situation following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was among the topics in focus at a meeting between Russian and French top diplomats and brass, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday after the consultations.
“We discussed in detail the situation in the sphere of strategic stability following the United States’ withdrawal from the INF Treaty,” he said. “Our position on that matter is well-known. It has regularly been reiterated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. We will not deploy such systems in those regions where such systems of US manufacture are not deployed.”
According to the Russian top diplomat, the Russian side has already invited NATO to negotiate on that matter but “NATO is refraining from any concrete reaction.”
The Russian foreign minister expressed serious concern over a possible arms race in outer space. “The United States has actually provided for such a possibility in its doctrinal documents and today we asked our French partners to clarify their own military space doctrine that was adopted on July 25,” Lavrov said. “In this context, we called on our colleagues to be responsible in their approaches to the discussions within the United Nations and at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva around the initiative suggested by Russia, China and a number of other nations to adopt a legally binding document on preventing weapons deployment in outer space.”