US deployment of weapons in space will lead to new stage of arms race — Lavrov

The implementation of US plans to deploy missile defense systems in space will lead to another stage in an arms race, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday at the session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries.

"We are concerned over US plans to deploy weapons in space that are already being implemented. This will lead to another qualitative stage of an arms race," Lavrov said. "As you know, Russia and China have already presented a draft proposal on preventing deployment of weapons in space at the disarmamanet conference in Geneva. We appreaciate it that BRICS countries support annual resolutions on this pressing issue at UN General Assembly sessions," he added.

The Russian foreign minister said that international security is particularly threatened by increasing military budgets of several countries and deterioration of the decades-long architecture of strategic stability. "Worrisome examples are US efforts to break down the missile defense treaty and New START [Strategic Nuclear Reduction Treaty]. Uncertainty also persists around the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty. We have suggested to extend it but have not heard a response from Washington yet," he concluded.