Russia, Cuba urge US to rethink exit from nuclear arms pact
Russia and Cuba on Friday called on the United States to reconsider its intention to withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty, saying the move would have extremely negative consequences for international security.
Washington has said it wants to quit the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and has accused Russia of violating it, something Moscow denies.
Russia and Cuba made their call for the United States to think again in a joint statement issued after talks in Moscow between President Vladimir Putin and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-canel, Reuters reported
The treaty was signed in 1987 by the then US president, Ronald Reagan, and Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Trump administration has complained of Moscow’s deployment of 9M729 missiles, which Washington says can travel more than 310 miles (500 kilometers), and thus violates the INF treaty.
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.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official earlier accused Washington of implementing policy “toward dismantling the nuclear deal”.
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.
The official accused the US of backing out of international agreements that put it on an equal footing with other countries because it wanted to protect American “exceptionalism.”