Russia supports Trump’s call to include China in new arms control deal — Foreign minister

U.S. President Donald Trump wants a solid arms control agreement and seeks to make China a party to the possible accord, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in May. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said Beijing would not be party to any trilateral nuclear deal.

“We very seriously consider signals from the United States in support of such a resolution of the problem.

“The problems are mounting in the sphere of limiting and curbing the nuclear and missile armaments.

“We have long been calling for a move toward multilateral arms control.

“From this point of view, the idea of expanding the number of parties beyond the bilateral format, which has been solely between Russia and the United States for decades, appears to be interesting,” Ryabkov said at a session of the Valdai Discussion Club.

At the same time, the deputy minister said that Russia understood China’s position “repeatedly expressed by the foreign ministry.”

“In the sphere of strategic arms control, so many problems have piled up that, in our opinion, these problems should be primarily addressed on the U.S.-Russian basis.

“And now, after the meeting in Osaka, it seems that further preconditions emerge to activate this process.

“We need to focus on prolongation of New START.

“If and when the goal to switch these efforts to a multilateral format enters the practical stage, we will clearly raise the issue of adding the United Kingdom and France … We cannot ignore the potential of these countries if we seriously talk about switching the arms control to a multilateral format,” the deputy foreign minister noted. (Sputnik/NAN)