Russia sees signals that the United States is open to launching the new stage of strategic dialogue and is ready to start an effort in this field, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a briefing on Thursday, as reported by TASS.
“We see signals that Washington is open to launching the new stage of strategic dialogue between our countries. Meanwhile, we are set to deal with the most challenging aspects of strategic sphere in the most decisive way. We plan to immediately launch this effort as soon as Washington is ready for it,” Ryabkov said.
According to the senior diplomat, the key channel of dialogue between Russia and the U.S. on strategic stability will be contacts between the deputy foreign ministers of both countries unless Washington comes up with other proposals.
“For our part, we have everything necessary for resuming bilateral strategic dialogue: political will, worked out approaches, and a formed interdepartmental team. We proceed from the fact that, if no other proposals come from the U.S. side, the tested format of interdepartmental delegations headed by deputy foreign ministers will remain the main working channel,” Ryabkov stressed.
