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Ditching nuclear arms treaty would be 'dangerous step', Russia warns US Ditching nuclear arms treaty would be dangerous step, Russia warns US
(about 3 hours later)
Russia’s deputy foreign minister has warned Donald Trump that he would be taking a “very dangerous step” if he carried out his plan to ditch a cold war-era nuclear weapons treaty with Russia. Senior Russian officials have lashed out at the United States after Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from an arms control treaty.
Sergei Ryabkov told the US president he was risking international condemnation in a bid for “total supremacy” in the military sphere. The intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, signed in 1987, has historically kept nuclear missiles out of Europe. The US president has accused Russia of violating the treaty first and told reporters on Saturday that the US would “have to develop those weapons” in response.
He insisted that Moscow strictly observed the three-decade-old intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, known as the INF, while accusing Washington of “flagrant violations”. The decision has provoked anger in Russia, where officials deny they have deployed any short- or medium-range missiles. Russia has demanded explanations from the US national security adviser, John Bolton, who strongly lobbied Trump to exit the treaty and was expected to arrive in Russia on Sunday for talks with the security officials.
The treaty was signed in 1987 by the countries’ then leaders, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. On Sunday, the deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, described Trump’s announcement as a “very dangerous step” and “blackmail to forcefully get certain concessions in a number of areas”.
On Saturday, Trump claimed Russia had long violated it. “We’re the ones who have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honoured the agreement, but Russia has not, unfortunately, honoured the agreement, so we’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out,” he told reporters. “In contrast with US colleagues, we realie how serious the matter is and how it is important for security and strategic stability, and we again call on all those people who set the tone in Washington to show a balanced and sober approach,” Ryabkov said.
“Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years. I don’t know why President [Barack] Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons [while] we’re not allowed to.” The former Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who signed the treaty, also criticised the Trump administration’s decision, calling it a mistake. The withdrawal “would undermine all the efforts made by the leaders of the USSR and the USA to achieve nuclear disarmament”. He said he agreed with recent remarks by Vladimir Putin in Sochi, where the Russian president warned about the dangers of nuclear war.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, was due to arrive in Moscow on Sunday evening and meet next week with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. The treaty bans land-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km, targeting nuclear weapons based on the European continent at the time. Concluded by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, it is one of several landmark arms treaties to face annulment in recent years. The 2010 new strategic arms reduction treaty, which is set to expire in 2021, has also been targeted by Bolton. Former US officials say he has blocked talks on extending that treaty.
Later this year Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, are expected to meet for their second summit in 2018. Russian lawmakers, who have limited influence but often share the Kremlin’s point of view, criticised the Trump administration’s announcement.
Bolton is also due to meet Russia’s security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a “possible meeting” was being prepared between Putin and Bolton. Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s foreign affairs committee, said that the US was seeking “unilateral military superiority”.
Ryabkov said on Sunday he hoped Bolton would explain the US plans “more substantively and clearly”. “The United States is looking for every opportunity to destroy the system of agreements on the global balance of nuclear forces that was established during the cold war years,” he wrote on his Facebook page, a clearinghouse for his political statements.
The Trump administration has complained of Moscow’s deployment of 9M729 missiles, which Washington says can travel more than 310 miles (500km), and thus violate the INF treaty. The US says that Russia has already violated the treaty by developing a new cruise missile. Withdrawal from the treaty would mark a sharp break in US arms control policy and would face opposition within the state department and Pentagon. The INF already faces a congressionally imposed deadline early next year.
The treaty, which banned missiles that could travel between 310 and 3,400 miles, resolved a crisis that had begun in the 1980s with the deployment of Soviet SS-20 nuclear-tipped, intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting western capitals. The US ambassador to Nato warned Russia earlier this month that if it did not halt the development of a new cruise missile in violation of a treaty between the countries, the US would “take out” the missile. A senior American general accused Russia of deploying the missile last year in remarks to the House armed services committee.
A Russian foreign ministry official earlier accused Washington of implementing policy “toward dismantling the nuclear deal”. Russia has increased criticism this year of the US exit from arms control agreements, including the Bush administration’s decision in 2001 to leave the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty signed in 1972. Putin has blamed the US for “creating the conditions for a new arms race”.
Washington “has approached this step over the course of many years by deliberately and step by step destroying the basis for the agreement,” said the unnamed official, quoted by Russia’s three main news agencies. Alexey Pushkov, an outspoken Russian lawmaker, called the Trump administration’s decision the “second powerful strike against the entire system of strategic stability in the world” after the US exit from ABM treaty.
US withdrawal from the INF “will destroy any prospects of extending the New Start treaty,” the head of the Russian senate’s foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said on Facebook. The adoption of the INF in 1987 led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated and an end to a dangerous standoff between US Pershing and cruise missiles and Soviet SS-20 missiles in Europe.
A US withdrawal from the INF could also target China. As a non-signatory, Beijing can develop intermediate-range nuclear weapons without constraint.
US-Russia ties are strained over accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The two countries are also at odds over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country’s civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.
On Friday, the US Justice Department indicted the finance chief of Russia’s leading troll farm for allegedly interfering with US elections – the first person to face charges involving the 2018 congressional midterm elections.
Russia accused the US of fabricating the charges.
While no new summit between Trump and Putin has yet been announced, one is expected in the near future. The two leaders will be in Paris on 11 November to attend commemorations marking the centenary of the end of the first world war.
A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another potential date could be when the two men attended the G20 meeting from 30 November.
RussiaRussia
US foreign policyUS foreign policy
Donald TrumpDonald Trump
Cold warCold war
Nuclear weaponsNuclear weapons
US militaryUS military
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