US to exit nuclear treaty, Russia warns of retaliation

MOSCOW: President Donald Trump said Washington will exit the Cold-War era treaty that eliminated a class of nuclear weapons due to Russian violations, triggering a warning of retaliatory measures from Moscow.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, required elimination of land-based short-range and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles by both countries. “Russia has not, unfortunately, honored the agreement so we´re going to terminate the agreement and we´re going to pull out,” Trump told reporters on Saturday after a rally in Nevada.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Sunday that a unilateral US withdrawal would be “very dangerous” and lead to a “military-technical” retaliation.

Gorbachev, now a frail 87-year-old, said it would be a mistake for Washington to quit the treaty, and that it would undermine work he and US counterparts did to end the Cold War Arms race. “Do they really not understand in Washington what this could lead to?” Interfax news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying. A Kremlin spokesman said Russian President Vladimir Putin would seek answers about the planned withdrawal when he meets John Bolton, Trump´s national security adviser, for scheduled talks in Moscow this week. US authorities believe Moscow is developing and has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the INF treaty that could allow it to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. Russia has consistently denied any such violation.

Trump said the United States will develop the weapons unless Russia and China agree to a halt on development. China is not a party to the treaty and has invested heavily in conventional missiles, while the INF has banned US possession of ground-launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles of ranges between 500 and 5,500 km (311 and 3,418 miles).

Ryabkov, in comments reported by state-controlled RIA news agency, said if the United States withdrew, Russia would have no choice but to retaliate, including taking unspecified measures of a “military-technical nature”.