US to withdraw from N-accord with Russia: Trump

WASHINGTON: A key Republican lawmaker on Sunday backed Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from a decades-old nuclear accord with Russia, saying the US needed to be free to respond to a Chinese nuclear build-up.

The US president on Saturday confirmed his plan to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, saying the Russians had been violating it "for many years" while China, not a signatory, remained free to develop such weapons.

Russia denounced the US decision as "very dangerous."

But Senator Lindsey Graham, who has become an outspoken ally of Trump´s, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the president was making "absolutely the right move.

"The Russians have been cheating; the Chinese are building up their missiles... and we need to counter it."

Another senior Republican, Senator Bob Corker, agreed that "there´s no question that for years Russia has been violating" the accord. He noted on CNN that some defense specialists say that "because China is not part of this (the INF) they´re developing systems that will move beyond where we are."

But Corker, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, said he hoped Trump’s stance was designed merely to pressure Russia to return into compliance.

"I hope we’ll be able to figure out a way to stay within the treaty.”

Meanwhile, withdrawing from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty with Russia as President Donald Trump has announced he plans to do is a dangerous step, Russia’s deputy foreign minister warned on Sunday.

“This would be a very dangerous step that, I’m sure, not only will not be comprehended by the international community but will provoke serious condemnation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS state news agency.

The treaty is “significant for international security and security in the sphere of nuclear arms, for the maintenance of strategic stability,” he stressed.

Russia condemned what he called attempts by the US to gain concessions “through a method of blackmail”, he added. If the US continues to act “clumsily and crudely” and unilaterally back out of international agreements “then we will have no choice but to undertake retaliatory measures including involving military technology,” Ryabkov said.

“But we would not want to get to this stage,” he added.

Ryabkov denied Trump’s accusations, throwing the accusation back at Washington.

“We don’t just violate (the treaty), we observe it in the strictest way,” he insisted.

“And we have shown patience while pointing out over the course of many years the flagrant violations of this treaty by the US itself.”

US National Security Adviser John Bolton is set to arrive in Moscow.

“We hope that we will hear from him during meetings, and more substantively and clearly what the American side intends to undertake,” said Ryabkov.

Earlier a foreign ministry source told Russian news agencies that the US move was connected to its “dream of a unipolar world”, an argument that Ryabkov also advanced.