MILAN, December 7. /TASS/. The European countries must influence the United States for the sake of preserving the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference following a meeting of the OSCE foreign ministers on Friday.

"My counterparts, including Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, have expressed concern over this situation [the United States’ pullout from the INF Treaty]. If they are really concerned, then they must probably influence their ally - the United States - to persuade the Americans to come to the negotiating table and start discussing the issue in a concrete way, and not accuse us groundlessly across the Atlantic," Lavrov said. "We are prepared for such a discussion."