MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. The initiative by US senators to withdraw from the New START Treaty shows that Washington views this document as a tool for settling political scores, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with the International Affairs journal, which came out on Friday.

"When I see reports that a group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill are taking the initiative to withdraw from the New START Treaty, I draw the conclusion that this treaty is increasingly turning into a kind of tool for settling political scores with opponents and the issue of what to do not to let the very ideology and practice of arms control in the format that has been formed in recent decades become a thing of the past is no longer on the agenda," he said.

According to the deputy minister, the suspension of Russia’s participation in the treaty will continue but "Russia will stay committed to its declared intention to voluntarily observe the central limits on the quantity of the existing strategic offensive weapons, carriers and warheads set by the treaty." "Concurrently, we will continue to share corresponding information under another document - the 1988 Soviet-US Ballistic Missile Launch Notification Agreement. This is the set of actions we are going to take," he said.

The Treaty, in his words, "has not fallen into oblivion." "It is still an instrument, a reference norm, but its operations component has been totally frozen and I see no grounds for any changes on any of these aspects," Ryabkov added.

In his State of the Nation Address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was suspending its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) but is not withdrawing from it. The president stressed that before returning to the discussion of the extension of the New START treaty, the Russian side wants to understand how the treaty will take into account not only the United States’ arsenals but also stockpiles of other NATO nuclear powers, namely the United Kingdom and France.