Robin Emmott /Reuters & AntiWar.com – 2019-01-18 23:04:54
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear/russia-us-fail-to-save-missile-treaty-washington-to-pull-out-idUSKCN1PA2C3
Russia, US Fail to Save Missile Treaty,
Washington to Pull Out
Robin Emmott /Reuters
BRUSSELS (January 16, 2019) — The United States on Wednesday rejected a Russian offer to save a landmark treaty that keeps nuclear missiles out of Europe because it could not be properly verified, setting the stage for Washington to withdraw from the pact next month.
After a meeting in Geneva between Russian and US officials, US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson said Moscow was refusing to allow proper inspection of a new Russian missile system that Washington says breaks the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
The INF treaty, negotiated by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and ratified by the US Senate, eliminated the medium-range missile arsenals of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers and reduced their ability to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
The treaty bans land-based missiles with a range between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kms (300-3400 miles).
“We weren’t able to break any new ground yesterday with Russia,” Thompson said of the Jan. 15 meeting with Russian Foreign Ministry officials.
“Based on yesterday’s discussions and corresponding rhetoric today, we see no indication that Russia would choose compliance,” Thompson told reporters.
SHORT NOTICE
The United States and its NATO allies want Russia to destroy its 9M729 nuclear-capable cruise missile system, which Washington says could allow Russia to strike Europe at short notice, and comply with the INF.
Without a deal, a US withdrawal over six months will start from February 2.
“Russia must come back into compliance,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters after a meeting at NATO in which Thompson briefed allies.
But he said the alliance now needed to be prepared for the collapse of the INF treaty and that he had asked military authorities to look into the consequences, although he declined to go into details.
European allies are worried about the deployment of US missiles in Europe, as happened in the 1980s, while being caught up in nuclear competition between Moscow and Washington.
“This is part of a pattern where Russia is investing in, modernizing, exercising and testing nuclear weapons,” Stoltenberg told Reuters. “I think the whole idea is for Russia to try to be able to reestablish a sphere of influence where they can try to intimidate and control some of their neighbors.”
Russia denies any such strategy and accuses US President Donald Trump of using Moscow as a pretext to quit the INF.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready to save the pact and the United States had not properly considered Moscow’s proposals and prevent a new arms race in Europe.
But Thompson said the Russian side only offered a look at the cruise missile system, a so-called static display, which she said would not verify the true range of its warheads.
Moscow says the range puts them outside the treaty and the distance they can fly is not as long as Washington alleges, meaning Moscow is fully compliant with the INF.
US Rejects Russian Offer, Will Pull Out of INF Treaty
1987 treaty had kept nuclear
missiles out of Europe for decades
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(January 16, 2019) — Initially ratified in 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which famously kept all nuclear missiles out of Europe for decades, is set to collapse, with US officials saying they will withdraw from the treaty next month.
The US has been accusing Russia of violating the INF for years related to a single missile design, called the 9m729, and its maximum range. The INF forbids all nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 km and 5,500 km.
The core of this issue is that the 9m729 is being designed as a replacement for the 9k720 Iskander, a short-range ballistic missile that has a range of 400 km, and is subsequently compliant with IMF. Russia maintains that the new missile has only been tested to the 400 km range itself, and is therefore also complaint.
US officials, however, have accused the new missile of being comparable to the 3M-54 Kalibr, a submarine-launched missile with a range of 660 km. A submarine-launched missile of that range is allowed under INF, but a ground-based version would be banned. The US saw the similarity and concluded the new missile must have a similar, banned range.
Russia made a last-minute bid to save the INF on Wednesday, offering the US a “static display” look at the new missile to confirm what it is. US officials are demanding complete access to it, and unsurprisingly Russia isn’t willing to hand over a brand new missile system to the United States to take apart and study, which US officials are claiming is the only way to really know its potential maximum range.
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