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    Categories: 2021

Putin submits bill to State Duma on denouncing Open Skies Treaty

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 12:20,

YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill to the State Duma on denouncing the Treaty on Open Skies, according to the lower house’s database, reports TASS.

“To denounce the Treaty on Open Skies signed in the city of Helsinki on March 24,1992”, the document said. An explanatory note says that the Treaty “contributed to significantly building trust in the military field”.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced on January 15 that Moscow had launched internal state procedures for exiting the Treaty on Open Skies. The Russian diplomatic agency explained the move by the absence of progress in removing obstacles for the Treaty’s continuation in new conditions after the US quit it in November 2020. The US Department of State stated in April that Washington had not decided yet on rejoining the Open Skies Treaty.

On May 5, the Russian government passed a resolution approving termination of the Treaty and referred this proposal to the president. On May 9, Putin appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as his official envoy to the Federal Assembly, or Russia’s national bicameral parliament, on issues of the denunciation of the Open Skies Treaty.

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS