Interfax: West unfoundedly accuses Russia of INF breach to deflect similar accusations against itself – Naryshkin

MOSCOW. Dec 10 (Interfax) – The West, including the United States, is breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and is accusing Russia of doing so in order to deflect accusations against itself, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has said.

“Political speculations aimed at deflecting lawful accusations and at misleading the global public on the subject of Russia have become more frequent in the West, primarily in the United States. A recent illustrative example is the unfounded claim of Russia’s deviation from the INF Treaty which is actually being violated by the deployment of the so-called missile defense network in Europe, the American missile defense network,” Naryshkin said at a meeting of the Council of Legislators Presidium.

The speaker urged Russian legislators to assess the fulfillment of international treaties in the trade, economic and security fields.

He said the assessment should be made as part of the annual Russian lawmaking report presented on the Day of Parliamentarianism on April 27.

“I would like to call your attention to the part of the report analyzing international agreements, both trade and economic [documents] and security treaties. Assessment of their implementation is extremely important now,” Naryshkin said.

The State Duma speaker said he was expecting new outbreaks of tension between Russia and its opponents provoked by foreign forces and called for the dismissal of any accusations against Russia with legal instruments.

“I think we will witness more outbreaks of tensions artificially created by our opponents. We have seen the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the Magnitsky Act, the internal Ukrainian crisis and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the recent years – Washington will use anything to justify new illegal sanctions, please bear in mind that they are not extending the existent restrictions but are adding new ones,” Naryshkin said.

“So, you and I have the task of demonstrating the invalidity of the foreign course towards confrontation in the light of law, on the basis of legal arguments,” Naryshkin said.

He said that was why he attributed large significance to the section of the annual Russian lawmaking report dedicated to these issues.