GENEVA, October 1. /TASS/. Washington should still prove its willingness to change its destabilizing course and hold an equal dialogue with Moscow in the field of security and strategic stability, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov reported on Friday.

"Both delegations agreed that this process should serve to stabilize bilateral relations in the strategic area, to ensure predictability, prevent arms race and build up arms control and reduce risks of armed conflicts," he said. "With that it’s yet to be proved in reality that Washington is ready to change its destabilizing course and pursue the above mentioned ambitious goals through interaction on an equal basis. It remains to be seen whether the US is actually ready to take into account our legitimate security interests and concerns."

As Ryabkov noted, in order to achieve these goals, the US should refrain from unilateral benefits in the strategic stability issues. "For many in Washington it might be difficult to abandon the strive for decisive unilateral advantages at the expense of Russia’s security as well as efforts to create a wide range of tools to put political-military pressure on geopolitical opponents," he added. "On a positive note, let me mention that there are some initial results in terms of defining common ways towards finding solutions to some persistent problems."

The Russian-US strategic stability consultations were held in Geneva on Thursday. As Ryabkov stressed, the new round of consultations showed the willingness of both sides to move further, although there have been very few points of contact so far. In 2021, the first round of the Moscow-Washington strategic stability dialogue was held on July 28.