WASHINGTON, Feb 2: The United States will suspend its compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia on Saturday.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said that the administration will provide formal notice to Russia that the US will withdraw from the landmark 1987 arms control accord in six months, if Moscow does not end its alleged violation of the pact, TASS quoted. Pompeo pointed out that in December 2018, he provided notice “that unless Russia returned to full and verifiable compliance within 60 days, we would suspend our obligations under that Treaty.”
“Russia has refused to take any steps to return to real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days. The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF treaty effective February 2. We will provide Russia and the other treaty parties with a formal notice that the US is withdrawing from the INF Treaty effective in six months, pursuing Article 15 of the Treaty,” the US state secretary noted.
According to him, “Russia has jeopardised the US security interests and we can no longer be restricted by the Treaty, while Russia shamelessly violates it. “If Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance with the Treaty within the six-month period by verifiably destroying its INF violating missiles, their launches and associate equipment, the Treaty will terminate,” Pompeo stated. Pompeo also said that Washington had “raised the Russian non-compliance with Russian officials, including at the highest level of government, more than 30 times.” “Russia continues to deny that its missile system is not compliant and violates the Treaty. Russia’s violation puts millions of Europeans and Americans at great risk, it aims to put the United States at a military disadvantage and it undercuts the chances of putting our bilateral relationship at a better direction,” he stressed.
“It’s our duty to respond appropriately. When an agreement is so brazenly disregarded and our security is so openly threatened, we must respond,” Pompeo said. The treaty, signed in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banned an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,000km. Such weapons were seen as particularly dangerous since they take only a few minutes to reach their targets, leaving little time for political leaders to ponder a response and raising the threat of a nuclear war in case of a false attack warning.
(UNI)
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