Comment of the Information and Press Department of the MFA of Russia as regards the publication of the report of the U.S. Department of State on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Non-proliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments

On July 12, the U.S. Department of State published a report On Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Non-proliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments for 2012, which provides evaluations of respect of contractual commitments by other states.
Like in the previous years, the United States continue to beg the question that Russia allegedly continues to violate its commitments under some international treaties.
In particular, the respect of Russia’s commitments under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is questioned again. No proof as always. At the same time, these American concerns could have been be fully eliminated long ago, of the United States did not block the creation of a verification mechanism within BTWC. Such mechanism would also allow removing many questions to the United States as regards the involvement of several US organisations into large-scale double application biological activities. As you know, results of such activities may be used for the purposes contrary to BTWC Article I.
Beside that, there is no documentary evidence that all the site under United States’ jurisdiction or control, which earlier participated in military biological programmes, have been destroyed or diverted to peaceful purposes pursuant to BTWC Article II. We are also seriously concerned with biological activities of the U.S. Department of Defence near Russian borders.
In its report, the U.S. Department of State also retails accusations in the alleged violation of commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by Russia. However, nobody accuses Russia in this way within the framework of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Americans itself in the OPCW also keep silence. It is evident that they have nothing to say; because Russia consistently respects convention requirements and regularly reports to OPCW its significant progress in destroying its chemical arsenal (more then 74 per cent have been destroyed by this time). And all of this is taking place against the background of actually suspended process of destruction of chemical arms by the United States, including delays in construction and commissioning of sites for destruction of the remaining significant stock of chemical weapons.
U.S. Department of State continues to call out to the violation of commitments under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). This is a “cold war”-type Treaty, which all Member States recognised to be irrelevant for the cardinally changed situation in Europe in mid-90s. An adapted version to replace the old CFE was developed and signed in 1999. However, these were the United States and their NATO allies, who refused to bring the Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE into force. In such situation, we were force to declare a moratorium on the performance of a Treaty which is discriminating to us, as permitted by the international law.
This fully justified step contributed to the situation that the Western countries later finally became aware that there was no way back to the old schemes of “cold war”. Today, with participation of the United States, we seek new approaches to the modernisation of the regime of Conventional Arms Control in Europe (CACE). We hope that our western partners have learned required lessons from their last experiences and will further refrain from destructive attempts to set preconditions for the launch of negotiations or bundle CACE with settlement of local conflicts.
As to the passages of the Report on Georgia, it is appropriate to remind that the reality is that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are sovereign states. The lack of wish to take this into account will negatively affect CACE prospects, as well as the functioning of the acting instrument of building military security and trust in Europe – Treaty on Open Skies (OST). The Russian Federation adheres and will adhere to the principal position that any flights in open skies mode closer than 10 kilometres from borders of the states not parties to the OST (Abkhazia and South Ossetia are such countries) would be in violation of Article VI of this Treaty.
The Report of U.S. Department of State provides us a cause to remind that the United States assure the international community for many years about their intent to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). In reality, we do not see any practical steps in this direction. Thus, the obligation for the non-entry of this Treaty into force until this time lays on, inter alia, the United States as one of countries, whose ratification is required to start complete functioning of CTBT regime.
In general, the next report makes an impression, that despite the changes in the world, the United States still remains stuck in the vise of Cold War propaganda. At the same time, ineradicable aspiration to assess others and to call names in our American partners is accompanied by their categoric unwillingness to “look into the mirror”.
To resume, it may be said that the practice of preparation and publication of such reports does not contribute to the formation of the atmosphere of trust or ensuring progress in real affairs in the field of arms non-proliferation and control.