Moscow has taken note of the speech of US Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton, which he made at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva setting forth the main elements of the policy of the administration of George W. Bush in the area of international security and disarmament. Russia shares the understanding of the need for the maximum concentration of the international community's efforts on the fight against international terrorism and on counteraction against new threats and challenges. Likewise one cannot but agree with the US proposals for the building-up of efforts to strengthen the internationally recognized nonproliferation standards and regimes, and to prevent the slightest possibility of weapons of mass destruction being turned into an instrument of blackmail and terror.
Yet Moscow is convinced that the most important aspect of the consolidation of strategic stability and international security under today's conditions must be the preservation and strengthening of the existing arms control and nonproliferation treaties and agreements.
At the same time a whole series of US approaches to disarmament problems - and they found again their reflection in the Bolton speech - objectively complicate the situation, and undermine the international legal system in the disarmament field. It is the United States' decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty of 1972, which Russia considers erroneous. It is the unwillingness of Washington to ratify the START-2 Treaty, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, its rejection of the continuation of work on the verification mechanism under the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons. In spite of the support by the overwhelming majority of countries for the start of the negotiation process on averting an arms race in outer space at the Conference on Disarmament, in fact the US alone does not see any need for this.
Russia regards the Conference on Disarmament as a unique international negotiation forum for the elaboration of universal disarmament agreements. In the conditions of globalization we see no way of dealing with international problems except on the basis of extensive cooperation among states. We once again declare our readiness for the search of mutually acceptable solutions as to the commencement of the substantive work of the Conference in the spirit of the compromise proposals already made by the Russian side on the program of work.