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US unlikely to be back in Open Skies Treaty under Biden administration - Russian diplomat

I don’t think it will ever happen, Konstantin Gavrilov, who leads the Russian delegation to the military security and arms control talks in Vienna, said

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. The United States is unlikely to revisit the Open Skies Treaty under President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, Konstantin Gavrilov, who leads the Russian delegation to the military security and arms control talks in Vienna, said on Friday.

"No, I have not hear anything about it (the US’ return to the treaty - TASS) and I don’t think the Biden administration will return to this treaty as their position on all international problems is opposite to the position of the world community. I mean the position on international treaties," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

According to the Russian diplomat, Russia may revise its decision to quit the treaty if the American side is back in it. "But I don’t think it will ever happen," he said.

The Russian foreign ministry released a statement on Friday informing that Russia is beginning domestic procedures to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty "over the lack of progress in what concerns the removal of obstacles for its continuation in the new conditions." According to the statement, Russia will issue a corresponding notification to the depositories after these procedures are over.

For years, Washington had been accusing Moscow of exercising a selective approach to the implementation of the Open Skies Treaty and violating a number of its provisions. Russia had been laying counter claims. In 2017, Washington imposed a number of restrictions on Russia’s observation flights over the US territory. Moscow gave a tit-for-tat response. In November 2020, the United States withdrew from the treaty.

The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 in Helsinki by 27 member nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), known as Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) before 1995. The main purposes of the open skies regime are to develop transparency, render assistance in monitoring compliance with the existing or future arms control agreements, broaden possibilities for preventing crises and managing crisis situations. The treaty establishes a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the entire territory of its participants. The treaty came into effect from January 1, 2002 after being ratified by 20 countries. Russia ratified the Treaty on Open Skies on May 26, 2001.

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