MOSCOW – Withdrawing from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty withRussia as President Donald Trump has announced he plans to do is adangerous step, Russia’s deputy foreign minister warned on Sunday.
“This would be a very dangerous step that, I’m sure, not only will not becomprehended by the international community but will provoke seriouscondemnation,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS state newsagency.
The treaty is “significant for international security and security in thesphere of nuclear arms, for the maintenance of strategic stability,” hestressed.
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 outof international agreements “then we will have no choice but to undertakeretaliatory measures including involving military technology,” Ryabkov toldRIA Novosti news agency.
“But we would not want to get to this stage,” he added.
On Saturday, Trump announced US plans to leave the three-decade-oldIntermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF, signed in 1987by the then US president Ronald Reagan.
“We’re the ones who have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honored theagreement, but Russia has not unfortunately honored the agreement, so we´regoing to terminate the agreement and we´re going to pull out,” said Trump.
But Ryabkov on Sunday denied Trump’s accusations, throwing the accusationback at Washington.
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“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 manyyears the flagrant violations of this treaty by the US itself.”
US National Security Advisor John Bolton is set to arrive in Moscow onSunday.
“We hope that we will hear from him during meetings, tomorrow and the dayafter, more substantively and clearly what the American side intends toundertake,” said Ryabkov.
Earlier a foreign ministry source told Russian news agencies that the USmove was connected to its “dream of a unipolar world”, an argument thatRyabkov also advanced.
“Apparently the existence of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treatycreates problems for establishing a line of total US domination andsupremacy in the military sphere,” he said. – APP/AFP
