Interfax: Productiveness of Dialogue on Space with U.S. Exceeds Expectations – Foreign Ministry Official

MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax) – The approach of the United States to confidence and transparency in space has greatly changed for the better, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry department for security and disarmament Mikhail Ulyanov believes.

“The dialogue on space with Americans continues and has proven more productive than one could have expected. There has been a positive evolution in the U.S. position as far as confidence-building measures and transparency are concerned,” he said in an interview with Interfax.

He said that Russia, the USA and China coauthored a resolution on transparency and confidence-building measures in space last autumn at the UN General Assembly session. “One can say that the format was unprecedented. Over 60 counties immediately wished to become coauthors. As a result the resolution was enthusiastically adopted by consensus,” he said. For several years the USA had either opposed the resolution or abstained, he recalled.

At the same time the diplomat recognized that Russia and the USA “still have different approaches to a legal ban on the deployment of arms in space.”

“Americans are absolutely unprepared for such a ban. Senate resolutions, including those adopted in the process of approving the budget, indicate that the United States wishes to keep an absolutely free hand in space,” Ulyanov said.