The Treaty on Open Skies established a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the territory of its participants. It is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information about military forces and activities of concern to them. It entered into force on 1 January 2002 and presently has 34 participants to include Russia and the United States. The officially certified U.S. Open Skies aircraft is the OC-135B Open Skies.... featured below. Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and Ukraine use the Antonov An-30 for their flights and Russia also uses the Tu-154M-ON Monitoring Aircraft, which is featured to the right. This information is provided because the United States finally conducted an Open Skies Treaty intelligence flight over Russian territory on Monday 21 April that was originally scheduled for 14 April. Apparently, the US team for the flight failed to arrive near Moscow on time and Russia refused to immediately reschedule it. Russia also expressed disappointment with U.S. delays in certifying a new high-tech Russian aircraft with improved sensors to be flown over the United States. The 34 State Parties to the Open Skies Treaty are: Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States. foxnews/politics/2014/04/22/us-conducts-spy-flight-over-russia-after-delay/?intcmp=latestnews
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:43:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015