MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. The United States’ possible decisions regarding the pullout from the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) are its internal affair, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the media on Monday.

"I think this is an element of the ongoing inter-party struggle in the United States. To a large extent, it is a US internal matter," he said when asked by TASS whether there was a risk of Washington's withdrawal from New START and how it might affect the country's security.

Ryabkov noted that Russia, although it suspended the treaty, voluntarily continued "to adhere to its main quantitative caps on warheads and delivery vehicles."

"Washington's hypothetical withdrawal from this treaty will not affect this position of ours. As for certain actions that we can and must take to ensure our own security, this is already being done. We will wait and see what politicians in Washington think about this. As we note, today there are quite a few reasons for inter-party squabbles there," Ryabkov added.

On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was suspending its participation in New START, but was not withdrawing from it. He stressed that to return to the discussion of further work under this treaty, the Russian side needed understanding of how the arsenals of not only the United States, but also those of the other nuclear powers of NATO - Britain and France - will be counted. On February 28, Putin signed a law suspending Russia's participation in New START.