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TEHRAN, October 22 -Russia said on Monday it would be forced to respond in kind to restore the military balance with the United States if President Donald Trump carried through on a threat to quit a landmark nuclear arms treaty and began developing new missiles.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Russia said on Monday it would be forced to respond in kind to restore the military balance with the United States if President Donald Trump carried through on a threat to quit a landmark nuclear arms treaty and began developing new missiles.
Trump drew a warning of “military-technical” retaliation from Moscow after saying on Saturday that Washington would withdraw from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles.
The INF treaty, signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 at a time of unprecedented East-West detente, required the elimination of all short-range and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles held by both countries in Europe.
Its demise could raise the prospect of a renewed arms race, and Gorbachev, now a frail 87-year-old, has warned that unravelling it could have catastrophic consequences.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called Trump’s withdrawal plan a matter of deep concern for Moscow.
“Such measures can make the world more dangerous,” he said during a daily conference call with reporters.
Despite repeated Russian denials, U.S. 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.
Trump said the United States would develop equivalent weapons unless Russia and China agreed to a halt in development. China is not a party to the treaty.
Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly warned that the demise of the treaty would force Moscow to take specific military steps to protect its own security.
“Scrapping the provisions of the INF treaty forces Russia to take measures for its own security because what does scrapping the INF treaty mean?,” said Peskov.
“It means that the United States is not disguising, but is openly starting to develop these systems in the future, and if these systems are being developed, then actions are necessary from other countries, in this case Russia, to restore balance in this sphere.”
Source: Reuters
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