US tells Russia it won’t rejoin Open Skies arms control pact

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration informed Russia on Thursday that it will not rejoin a key arms control pact, even as the two sides prepare for a summit next month between their leaders.

U.S. officials said Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told the Russians that the administration had decided not to reenter the Open Skies Treaty, which had allowed surveillance flights over military facilities in both countries but that former President Donald Trump had withdrawn from.

Thursday’s decision means only one major arms control treaty between the nuclear powers — the New START treaty — remains in place. Trump had done nothing to extend New START, which would have expired earlier this year, but after taking office the Biden administration moved quickly to extend it for five years and opened a review into the Open Skies Treaty withdrawal.

The officials said the review had been completed and that Sherman had informed Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov of the U.S. decision not to return to Open Skies on Thursday. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move comes just weeks before President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are to meet on June 16 in Geneva, Switzerland, in a bid to try to find common ground amid a sharp deterioration in ties that have sunk relations to their lowest point in decades.

The Open Skies Treaty was intended to build trust between Russia and the West by allowing the accord’s more than three dozen signatories to conduct reconnaissance flights over each other’s territories to collect information about military forces and activities. More than 1,500 flights have been conducted under the treaty since it took effect in 2002, aimed at fostering transparency and allowing for the monitoring of arms control and other agreements.

The Trump administration announced the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty last year , and the lower house of Russia’s parliament voted last week to follow suit . But, until Thursday the two sides had said the treaty could still be salvaged with Russian officials saying they were willing to reconsider their withdrawal if the U.S. did the same.

The upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council, was expected to approve the withdrawal bill on June 2 and once Putin signed the measure, it would take six months for the Russian exit to take effect.

Thursday’s notification, however, appears to put the final nail in the coffin of the treaty t hat was broadly supported by U.S. allies in Europe and Democrats in Congress as a trust-building measure between the former Cold War adversaries.

In pulling out of the pact, Trump argued that Russian violations made it untenable for Washington to remain a party to the agreement. Washington completed its withdrawal from the treaty in November.

Moscow deplored the U.S. withdrawal, warning that it will erode global security by making it more difficult for governments to interpret the intentions of other nations, particularly amid heightened Russia-West tensions over myriad other issues ranging from Ukraine to cyber malfeasance and the treatment of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and his supporters.

Leading congressional Democrats and members of the European Union had urged the U.S. to reconsider its exit and called on Russia to stay in the pact and lift flight restrictions, notably over its westernmost Kaliningrad region, which lies between NATO allies Lithuania and Poland.

Russia had insisted the restrictions on observation flights it imposed in the past were permissible under the treaty and noted that the U.S. imposed more sweeping restrictions on observation flights over Alaska.

As a condition for staying in the pact after the U.S. pullout, Moscow had unsuccessfully pushed for guarantees from NATO allies that they wouldn’t hand over the data collected during their observation flights over Russia to the U.S.

华盛顿——拜登政府周四通知俄罗斯，即使双方准备下个月举行领导人峰会，俄罗斯也不会重新加入一项关键的军控条约。

美国官员表示，副国务卿温迪·舍曼告诉俄罗斯方面，美国政府已决定不再重新加入《开放天空条约》。该条约允许对两国军事设施进行侦察飞行，但前总统唐纳德·特朗普已退出该条约。

周四的决定意味着，核大国之间仅剩一项主要的军控条约——《新削减战略武器条约》（New START）——仍然有效。特朗普此前并未采取任何措施延长《新削减战略武器条约》，该条约本应于今年早些时候到期。但拜登政府上任后迅速采取行动，将其延长五年，并启动了对退出《开放天空条约》的审查。

官员们表示，审查已经完成，谢尔曼已于周四将美国不重返“开放天空”条约的决定告知俄罗斯副外长谢尔盖·里亚布科夫。这些官员未获授权公开讨论此事，因此要求匿名。

就在美国总统乔·拜登和俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京将于6月16日在瑞士日内瓦会晤前几周，双方试图在两国关系急剧恶化、跌至数十年来最低点之际寻求共同点。

《开放天空条约》旨在通过允许三十多个缔约国相互进行领空侦察飞行，收集有关军事力量和活动的情报，从而建立俄罗斯与西方之间的信任。自2002年该条约生效以来，已根据该条约进行了1500多次飞行，旨在促进透明度，并允许对军控和其他协议的执行情况进行监督。

特朗普政府去年宣布美国退出该条约，俄罗斯议会下院上周投票决定效仿。但直到上周四，双方还表示该条约仍有挽救的可能，俄罗斯官员称，如果美国也退出该条约，他们愿意重新考虑退出。

俄罗斯议会上院联邦委员会预计将于 6 月 2 日批准退出欧盟法案，普京签署该法案后，俄罗斯退出欧盟还需要六个月时间才能生效。

然而，周四的通知似乎给这项条约钉上了最后一根稻草。该条约曾得到美国在欧洲的盟友和国会民主党人的广泛支持，被视为前冷战对手之间建立信任的措施。

特朗普退出该协议时辩称，俄罗斯的违约行为使华盛顿无法继续留在协议中。华盛顿于11月完成了退出该条约的程序。

莫斯科对美国的退出表示遗憾，并警告说，这将削弱全球安全，使各国政府更难解读其他国家的意图，尤其是在俄罗斯与西方因乌克兰、网络犯罪以及俄罗斯反对派人士阿列克谢·纳瓦尔尼及其支持者的待遇等诸多问题而关系日益紧张的情况下。

美国国会民主党领袖和欧盟成员敦促美国重新考虑退出该条约，并呼吁俄罗斯留在条约内，解除飞行限制，特别是对其最西端的加里宁格勒地区的飞行限制，该地区位于北约盟国立陶宛和波兰之间。

俄罗斯坚称，其过去对侦察飞行施加的限制符合条约规定，并指出美国对阿拉斯加上空的侦察飞行施加了更为广泛的限制。

作为美国退出北约后继续留在该条约的条件，莫斯科曾试图迫使北约盟国保证不会将他们在飞越俄罗斯上空进行侦察飞行时收集的数据交给美国，但这一要求最终未能实现。