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ELKO, Nev. / MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said Washington would pull out of a historic Cold War era treaty, which was eliminating nuclear missiles from Europe because Russia was violating the pact, triggering retaliatory measures by Moscow.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, foresaw the elimination of short-range and conventional nuclear and conventional missiles. intermediate by both countries.
"Russia has unfortunately not respected the agreement, so we will terminate the agreement and we will withdraw," Trump told the press on Saturday following a gathering in Nevada.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Sunday that a unilateral withdrawal from the United States would be "very dangerous" and would lead to "technical-military" retaliation.
Gorbachev, now 87, says it would be a mistake for Washington to abandon the treaty and undermine the work that he and his American counterparts have done to end the Cold War arms race.
"Do not they really understand in Washington what this could lead to?" Gorbachev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
A Kremlin spokesman said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would seek answers about the planned withdrawal when he will meet John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, for talks in Moscow this week.
The US authorities believe that Moscow is developing and has put in place a system launched on the ground, in violation of the INF Treaty, which could allow it to trigger a nuclear strike in Europe at short notice. Russia has always denied any such violation.
Trump said the US would develop weapons unless Russia and China agree to stop development. China is not party to the treaty.
EUROPEAN BATTLE GROUND
The arms control agreement, signed by Reagan and Gorbachev during a ceremony at the White House, bans medium-range land-based nuclear missiles capable of hitting Europe or Alaska.
This put an end to a Cold War crisis, when the Soviet Union had installed nearly 400 nuclear warheads headed to Western Europe. The United States reacted by installing Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe.
But this sparked a wave of protests from anti-nuclear activists, who said the deployment made Europe a potential nuclear battlefield.
In the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Bonn, West Germany, and activists formed a protest camp in Greenham Common, Britain, where the missiles were located. Cruise.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said in comments from the state-controlled news agency RIA that if the US withdrew, Russia would not have there is no choice but to take retaliatory measures, including taking unspecified measures of a "military-technical nature".
"But we would prefer that things do not go that far," RIA said, quoted by RIA.
According to the news agency TASS, he said his withdrawal "would be a very dangerous step", and that it was Washington and not Moscow that did not respect the treaty.
He added that the Trump administration was using the treaty to try to blackmail the Kremlin, thus jeopardizing global security. "… We will of course not accept ultimatums or blackmail methods," Interfax said.
In comments by the Financial Times, British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson said London was "resolved" behind Washington on this issue and that the Kremlin was mocking the deal.
However, another member of NATO, Germany, expressed doubts.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the treaty has been one of the pillars of Europe's security architecture for 30 years. "We are now urging the United States to consider the possible consequences," according to Maas, of giving up the pact.
Trump has, in the past, threatened to tear up international agreements, but has finally failed.
Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, drew a parallel with the NAFTA trade pact, which Trump threatened to tear up, before a new version of the bill was released. agreement was negotiated last month.
"It could be a bit like the fact that they were going to end NAFTA and then negotiate small changes," Corker said about "the state of the Union" from CNN.
"So it could be something – just a forerunner – to try to convince Russia to comply." Corker said that the abandonment of the treaty had not been addressed during a conversation with Trump State Secretary Mike Pompeo.
Report by Jeff Mason; Additional reports by Idrees Ali and Polina Devitt; Written by Christian Lowe in Moscow; edited by Richard Balmforth
