Russia rejects US report on arms control violation

Russia on Tuesday rejected a US report on Moscow's compliance with international arms control treaties, calling the measure "biased and groundless." "As in previous years, the State Department barely, without any evidence, claimed that Russia allegedly violated its obligations under certain international treaties," the Foreign Ministry said, adding that Moscow found the report "counterproductive and groundless." Russia believes that such an assessment should be made via expert-level bilateral consultations where the sides "would not deal only with unfounded allegation," the ministry said in a statement. Russia was puzzled whether U.S. experts were unaware of or deliberately distorted the information with their analysis on Russia's implementation because the country fulfilled its treaty commitment "under the direct supervision of the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," the ministry said. Russia also doubted the global monitoring mechanism of biological security, saying the system was created with U.S. coordination and "particularly under the pretext of fulfilling conventional commitments which actually only served the U.S. interests," the ministry said. As for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was ratified by three of the five nuclear powers, the United States was still hovering outside. "Despite numerous pledges of U.S. President Barack Obama to speed up this process, the country did not ratify the treaty," said the ministry, adding that the United States should be held accountable for the treaty's delayed implementation.