ELKO, MOSCOW, October 21
President Donald Trump has announced that the US will pull out of a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty with Russia that limited the number of missiles in the two nations, accusing Moscow of violating the deal. The announcement triggered a warning of retaliatory measures from Moscow.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, required elimination of short-range and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles by both countries.
“Russia has not, unfortunately, honoured the agreement so we’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out,” Trump told reporters on Saturday after a rally in Nevada.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Sunday that a unilateral US withdrawal would be “very dangerous” and lead to a “military-technical” retaliation.
US authorities believe Moscow is developing and has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the INF treaty that could allow it to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. Russia has consistently denied any such violation.
Trump said the United States will develop the weapons unless Russia and China agree to a halt on development. China is not a party to the treaty and has invested heavily in conventional missiles, while the INF has banned US possession of ground-launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles of ranges between 500 and 5,500 km.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, will visit Moscow next week. Ryabkov said if the US withdrew, Russia would have no choice but to retaliate, including taking unspecified measures of a “military-technical nature”.
TASS news agency quoted him as saying withdrawal “would be a very dangerous step”, and it was Washington and not Moscow that was failing to comply with the treaty.
He said the Trump administration was using the treaty in an attempt to blackmail the Kremlin, putting global security at risk. “...We will, of course, accept no ultimatums or blackmail methods,” Interfax quoted him as saying. — Reuters
Trump accuses Moscow of violating agreement
Gorbachev slams Trump’s ‘lack of wisdom’
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Sunday slammed as unwise a decision by US President Donald Trump to quit a nuclear arms treaty he signed with the late Ronald Reagan in 1987. “Is it really so hard to understand that dropping these agreements... shows a lack of wisdom?” 87-year-old Gorbachev said. “All the agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament and limitation of nuclear arms must be preserved to save life on Earth,” he said. AFP
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