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MOSCOW – White House national security advisor John Bolton on Monday begins with the President of the United States President Trump's weekend announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons. The Moscow visit by Bolton was announced by Mr. Trump that the U.S. was ditching the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as INF, a move Moscow has already denounced as "dangerous."
The treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear weapon and missile was signed in 1987 by the US President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who on Sunday said that "dropping these agreements … shows a lack of wisdom" and was a "mistake".
Bolton arrived in Russia Sunday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On Monday morning he met his counterpart counterpart, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
President Vladimir Putin, likely on Tuesday, according to Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said the Russian leader was looking for "clarifications" about U.S. intentions.
The "right" move, or a "dangerous" one?
Republican Senate Foreign Relations chairman Bob Corker said he hoped Mr. Trump would not follow through on the U.S. out of the treaty, and warned that it would be disinhibited.
He left open the possibility that Mr. Trump's remarks were just a threat, saying Sunday on CNN: "Maybe this is just a move to say, look … if you do not straighten up we're moving out of this .. And I hope that's the case. "
However, as CBS News correspond to Errorl Barnet reports, Republican Fellow Lindsey Graham said it was "absolutely the right move," and Britain's defense of its decision for the U.K. decision was "absolutely resolute" in its backing of the U.S. decision.
Not all of America's European allies were so eager to back the change, however.
"NATO partners must now consult the consequences of the American decision," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday, noting that Germany regretted Mr. Trump's decision.
Peskov told reporters Monday that claiming the treaty "will make the world more dangerous" and rejected U.S. claims Moscow has violated the pact, instead accusing Washington of doing so.
"It is the United States that is one of the leaders of this country with its missile defense capabilities and drones, he said.
U.S. blames Russia, Russia blames U.S.
But Mr. Trump on Saturday proclaimed Russia had long violated the treaty.
"We're the ones who have stayed in the agreement and we've honored the agreement, but we're going to get out of the agreement," he said. reporters.
"They have been violating it for many years," he said.
"And we're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons (while) we're not allowed to."
The row comes ahead of what is expected to be a second summit between Mr. Trump and Putin this year.
The Trump administration has complained of Moscow's deployment of Novator 9M729 missiles near the eastern frontier of Europe – a move many NATO allies a threat, especially in the wake of Russia's unilateral annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Washington says the missiles fall under the treaty's ban on rockets that can travel distances of between 310 and 3,400.
The Obama administration pressured Moscow to withdraw the missiles and respect the INF treaty, but won little concession from Russia.
The INF resolved a crisis over Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeting western capitals.
The latest rift could have "the most lamentable consequences", political analyst Alexei Arbatov told Interfax news agency, dragging Russia into a "new cycle of the arms race".
A Washington, DC, of the policy of "dismantling the nuclear deal".
For many years, Washington has been "deliberately and step by step destroying the basis for the agreement," said the unnamed official.
The official accused the United States of America of backing out of international agreements that it was an equal footing with other countries because it wanted to protect American "exceptionalism".
Bolton himself is pressuring President Trump to leave the New Start treaty on strategic missiles set to expire in 2021, according to Britain's The Guardian newspaper.
The U.S. plan to withdraw from the INF is also targeting China. As a non-signatory, Beijing can develop intermediate-range nuclear weapons without constraints.
U.S.-Moscow ties already strained
U.S.-Russia is under deep pressure over charges Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The two countries are also at odds over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country's civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.
On Friday, the United States Department of Justice is leading the US in the fight against terrorism in the United States.
Russia accused the United States of fabricating the charges.
While no new summit between Mr. Trump and Putin has been announced, one is expected in the near future.
The two leaders will be in Paris on November 11 to commemorations marking 100 years since the end of World War I.
