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| Tu-154M Lk-1 Photo Credit: Mark Kwiatkowski |
ITAR-TASS: Russia - Russian inspectors to make Open Skies flight over US
MOSCOW, September 21. /ITAR-TASS/. A group of inspectors will begin a monitoring flight by observation aircraft Tu-154M Lk-1 over the United States under the International Open Skies Treaty, the acting head of the Russian National Centre for Reduction of Nuclear Danger told Itar-Tass.
“An observation flight at a maximum distance of up to 4,900 kilometres will be made from September 21 to 29 from the Open Skies airfield Wright-Patterson, Ohio,” Ruslan Shishin said.
The Russian observation aircraft would make a flight on a route coordinated with a party under observation and American specialists aboard the airplane would control how monitoring equipment was used and the treaty’s clauses were fulfilled, he said.
The observation flight is made to make military activity of the signatory nations to the treaty more open and transparent and to step up security through higher confidence-building measures. This is the 30th flight Russia makes over the territory of the treaty’s signatories in 2014.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in 1992. As many as 34 countries joined the agreement. Observation flights are made over Russia, the U.S., Canada and European states. Open Skies top tasks are development of transparency, assistance to supervision over fulfilment of the arms control agreements, broader capacities to avert crises and settle crisis situations within the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and other international organisations.
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/750548
