MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/. The West is taking every step to cause cooperation under the Vienna treaty on confidence-building measures to grind to a halt, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the State Duma on Wednesday.

“The Vienna document on voluntary confidence-building measures does not require ratification,” Lavrov said. “It concerns notifications of scheduled exercises involving a certain number of troops and military hardware.”

“Of course a great deal of information about our armed forces is classified,” he said. “But we have nothing to hide as to deployment sites. We have no intention to go farther than our Western partners in terms of the transparency of information exchanges.”

“They (the West) regrettably do their utmost to terminate that cooperation,” Lavrov said.

On START-3

The strategic arms reduction treaty START-3 meets the fundamental interests of Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the State Duma on Wednesday.

“START-3 meets our basic strategic interests and on the condition of its observance by the United States we are interested in its full implementation,” Lavrov said. “This will increase world stability without harming our capability to maintain our security."

On Open Skies Treaty

Moscow finds the Open Skies Treaty useful, this is important for Russia to see what is happening on the NATO territory, Lavrov noted.

“The Open Skies Treaty is useful, this is also important for us to see what is happening in different parts of the NATO territory,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we are not doing anything illegal on our territory and when our partners want to learn about our state of affairs, we do not oppose this," Lavrov added.