Nuclear arms race fears as Trump gives Putin final warning
THE threat of a new nuclear arms race between Russia and the US intensified yesterday.
Washington warned it will pull out of a disarmament deal within 60 days unless Russia observes the strict terms of the 1987 treaty.
Military observers say a new Russian missile system had breached the Intermediaterange Nuclear Forces treaty.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said: ‘We either bury our head in the sand or we take common sense action. The United States today declares Russia in material breach of the treaty and we will suspend our obligations as a remedy in 60 days unless Russia returns to full and verifiable compliance.’
Nato said it was ‘up to Russia’ to save the Cold War agreement. In October, President Donald Trump declared that the US would pull out of the treaty and build up America’s nuclear stockpile ‘until people come to their senses’.
The INF treaty prohibits the US and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying a ground launched cruise missile with a range of 500km to 5,500km.
It eliminated a whole category of nuclear weapons from American and Russian arsenals.
But in 2012 the US accused Russia of violating the treaty with a range of weapons.
Russia has in turn accused the US of breaking the treaty with its missile defences.
At the end of the 60-day period proposed by Mr Pompeo, the US would give six months’ notice that it was pulling out of the INF. In Washington yesterday, Mr Pompeo told his Nato counterparts the range of Russia’s new SSC-8 missiles ‘makes it a direct menace to Europe’.
Foreign ministers from the 29member Nato alliance said in a joint statement: ‘This is part of Russia’s broader pattern of behaviour that is intended to weaken the overall Euro-Atlantic security architecture.
‘We call on Russia to return urgently to full and verifiable compliance.’
The INF treaty was signed in 1987 between president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Western defence chiefs have credited it with keeping nucleartipped missiles out of Europe for the past 30 years.
But US national security adviser John Bolton last month flew to Moscow to hand-deliver to President Vladimir Putin President Trump’s judgment that Russia had violated the treaty. He said: ‘It is the Ameri- can position that Russia is in violation. It is Russia’s position that they are not in violation.
‘So one has to ask, how do you convince the Russians to come back into compliance with obligations they don’t think they’re violating?’
O Senior US senators last night said they are more certain than ever that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was culpable in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
After CIA director Gina Haspel briefed senators, Senate foreign relations committee chairman Bob Corker, a Republican, said he believed that if the crown prince were put on trial, a jury would find him guilty in ‘about 30 minutes’.
Fellow Republican Lindsey Graham described the Saudi royal as ‘a wrecking ball’, ‘crazy’ and ‘dangerous’.
Mr Khashoggi, a US resident, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
‘Crazy and dangerous’