Trump: US pulling out of Cold War era nuke treaty

ELKO (Nevada): President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States will exit the Cold-War era treaty that eliminated a class of nuclear weapons due to Russian violations, a move an official in Moscow called a dangerous attempt at blackmail.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated by then-president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, required elimination of short- 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 said after a rally in Nevada.

Washington believes Moscow has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the INF treaty that could allow Moscow to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. Trump said the US would develop its own weapons unless Russia and China agreed to halt theirs.

China is not a party to the treaty, and has invested heavily in missiles as part of an anti-access/area denial strategy, while the INF banned US possession of ground-launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles of ranges between 500km and 5,500km.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in comments reported by TASS news agency, said a unilateral US withdrawal from the treaty “would be a very dangerous step”.

Ryabkov was also quoted as saying that it was Washington and not Moscow that was failing to comply with the treaty.