TASS – A meeting of the US-Russia Space Security Work Group will take place in late July, the US State Department Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) announced on its Twitter page.
“Big day for strategic security diplomacy with Russia: in meeting with Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, [US Assistant Secretary Chris] Ford finalized planning for a Space Security Exchange at end of July,” the US bureau stated.
Moscow and Washington agreed on an initiative to form an expert group on security in outer space following talks on the strategic stability in January. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS in April that Moscow and Washington started work on the agenda for the work of the expert group on outer space, with the issue of preventing the arms race in outer space as one of its priorities.
Russia has numerously pointed to the US plans for deploying weapons in outer space. Specifically, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated at the disarmament conference on February 25 that “the plans of the US, France and the North Atlantic alliance as a whole for bringing weapons into outer space are acquiring increasingly real contours.” Russia’s top diplomat also noted that it was not late yet to prevent military confrontation in outer space by way of formulating the general rules of conduct.
