Russia's Ban Of Flights Near Abkhazia, S. Ossetia Complies With Open Skies Treaty - Lavrov

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia's restrictions on observation flights near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as treaty flights over the Kaliningrad Region, are in full compliance with the Open Skies Treaty, noting that the accusations by Washington, which recently withdrew from the deal citing Russia's nonobservance, lacked grounds.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Washington was withdrawing from the treaty. The Trump administration cited Russia's alleged noncompliance as a motivating factor for the decision and pointed to Moscow's move to impose a sublimit of 500 kilometers (310 miles) for treaty flights over the Kaliningrad Region and restricting access to observation flights along Russia's border with the breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia areas. However, the US president did not rule out that new agreements would be made.

"We were again accused of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty and said that Russia grossly violated all the provisions of the treaty. And they recalled Abkhazia with South Ossetia, and that we do not allow flying closer than 10 kilometers to our border with these states. Well, this position is firmly based on the provisions of the treaty itself, which provides for the non-monitoring of the 10-kilometer zone from the border of states that are not members of the treaty.

The fact that Western colleagues do not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states does not change anything," Lavrov said at a press conference after a meeting with foreign ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

According to Lavrov, as for the flight range limit over the Kaliningrad Region, the restrictions were set in accordance with the annex to the Open Skies Treaty, like in the case with Alaska.

"In particular, we have limited the range of flights over the Kaliningrad Region, taking into account its geographical characteristics, and using the US precedent for Alaska. Both the Kaliningrad Region and Alaska are, so to say, semi-exclaves, and we assume that this is absolutely derived from the geographical location of the Kaliningrad Region and Alaska. Secondly, we assumed that both Alaska and the Kaliningrad Region had open-sky airfields allocated for observation of territories," Lavrov stated.

The foreign minister recalled that a regular review conference on the treaty was scheduled for October.