Trump says the United States will withdraw from the intermediate-range nuclear pact, citing violations on the part of Russia

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he would step down from a historic arms control agreement signed by the United States and the Soviet Union, accusing Russia of violate the pact. 19659005] The Cold War era treaty required the two countries to dispose of nuclear missiles and conventional and short-range missiles from their arsenals.

"Russia has unfortunately not respected this agreement. Trump told reporters after a rally in Nevada.

The agreement prevented the United States from developing new weapons, but Trump said Saturday that the United States would start developing them unless Russia and China agree not to own or develop weapons. China is not currently party to the pact.

"We will have to develop these weapons, unless Russia comes to us, and China comes to us, and they all come to us and they say: 'Let's be really smart and' None of us do not develop these weapons, "he told reporters.

"If Russia does it, and if China does it, and we adhere to it, it is unacceptable," he added.

Trump did not do anything. It does not provide details about the violations, but in 2017, national security officials at the White House said that Russia had deployed a cruise missile in violation of the treaty. Earlier, the Obama administration had accused the Russians of violating the pact by developing and testing a banned cruise missile.

Russia repeatedly denied having violated the treaty and accused the United States of not complying with it.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov returned to Trump on Sunday, accusing Washington of blackmailing justice and claiming that the US withdrawal from the agreement nuclear power would be a "very dangerous step."

"We condemn the ongoing blackmail attempts to obtain concessions from Russia," said Ryabkov ews agency TASS.

He stated that Trump's action "will result in the most serious condemnation of all members of the international community committed to security and stability."

"Apparently, the inability and reluctance to negotiate with us a reasonable basis is pushing some forces in Washington to bring the country's leaders to a decision on the formal withdrawal of the treaty," he said. "It would be a very dangerous step."

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament also condemned Trump's decision.

"This is a reckless move by Trump," CND Secretary General Kate Hudson said in a statement Sunday (1965). "Tearing the Mid-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will mark the end of the restrictions imposed on nuclear arsenals in the 1980s. The danger is that we would see arsenals multiply on the scale of the Cold War."

Tom Plant, director of Proliferation and Nuclear Policy at the London-based think tank of the Royal United Services Institute, described Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact as "premature".

Although most NATO members recognize that Russia has violated the agreement, Moscow The pact was still partly constrained while it was trying to maintain the appearance of legitimacy.

"It gives a bit of a gift to the Kremlin," he said. "It sounds like a blunder."

According to Plant, the withdrawal of the pact could be useful to the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, where more ground-based missile systems could help "deter Chinese aggression" in places such as South China Sea.

"The NIF is a bilateral treaty of global scope, so China is not bound by it, but the United States and Russia remain so even in the Asia-Pacific region," she said. he declared.

Announcement of Trump John Bolton, his national security advisor, went on Saturday to Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. His first stop is in Moscow, where he will meet Russian leaders, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev.

Relations between Moscow and Washington remain frosty in the face of the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian interference. to the 2016 presidential race and the upcoming mid-term elections in the United States.