COMPLY WITH NUCLEAR PACT, OR WE QUIT IT, U.S. TELLS RUSSIA.
BRUSSELS • The United States warned Russia Tuesday it has 60 days to start complying with a landmark nuclear missile treaty or Washington will abandon the pact.
At NATO talks in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Russia of “cheating at its arms control obligations” under the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. He said in 60 days, Washington would activate a six-month notice period for leaving the pact.
“Our nations have a choice. We either bury our head in the sand or we take common sense action in response to Russia’s flagrant disregard for the expressed terms of the INF Treaty,” Pompeo told reporters.
The U.S. has shared intelligence evidence with its NATO allies that Russia’s new SSC-8 ground-fired cruise missile could give Moscow the ability to launch a nuclear strike in Europe with little or no notice.
The INF is a bilateral treaty between Washington and Moscow that bans all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Russia says the range of the new system does not exceed 500 kilometres.
Pompeo said Washington “would welcome a Russian change of heart” but that he has seen no indication that Moscow is likely to comply.
U.S. allies in NATO said Tuesday they “strongly support the finding of the United States that Russia is in material breach of its obligations” while Washington is respecting the treaty.
In a statement, NATO foreign ministers also called on Russia “to return urgently to full and verifiable compliance.”
“It’s up to Russia now to preserve the INF Treaty. They have a last chance to show and demonstrate in a verifiable way that they comply with the treaty,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “But we also have to prepare for a world without the treaty.”
Stoltenberg said the 29 NATO allies will “collectively develop responses” should the treaty be abandoned. “We have to remember that no arms control agreement will work if it is only respected by one party,” he said.
In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters that “Russia strictly complies with the provisions of the treaty, and the American side is aware of that.”
Russia’s actions in Ukraine also came under the spotlight at Tuesday’s NATO meeting.
Stoltenberg accused Russia of using the Crimean Peninsula as a platform to take control of waters off eastern Ukraine, as allies struggled Tuesday to find ways to dissuade Moscow from destabilizing the former Soviet republic.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sparking NATO’S biggest military buildup in Eastern Europe since the Cold War.