A defiant Vladimir Putin on Wednesday threatened to develop nuclear missiles banned under a treaty with the United States after Washington gave Moscow a deadline to comply with the key arms control agreement.<\/p>\n
The latest spike in tensions came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw from a major Cold War treaty limiting mid-range nuclear arms within 60 days if Russia does not dismantle missiles that the US claims breach the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently now American partners believe the situation has changed so much that the United States should also have such weapons.<\/p>\n
In Brussels, EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini urged Russia and the US to save the treaty, warning that Europe did not want to become a battlefield for global powers once again, as it had been during the Cold War.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe INF has guaranteed peace and security in European territory for 30 years now,\u201d Mogherini said as she arrived for talks with NATO foreign ministers.<\/p>\n
In October, President Donald Trump sparked concern globally by declaring the United States would pull out of the deal and build up America\u2019s nuclear stockpile \u201cuntil people come to their senses\u201d.<\/p>\n
Putin at the time warned that abandoning the treaty and failure to extend another key arms control agreement known as the New START, would unleash a new arms race and put Europe in danger.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the US leader said he wants talks with Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping \u201cto head off a major and uncontrollable arms race\u201d.<\/p>\n
Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia\u2019s General Staff, said that Moscow would increase the capabilities of its ground-based strategic nuclear arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the main destructive factors complicating the international situation is how the US is acting as it attempts to retain its dominant role in the world,\u201d he said in comments released by the defence ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is for these purposes that Washington and its allies are taking comprehensive, concerted measures to contain Russia and discredit its role in international affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, the INF resolved a crisis over Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals.<\/p>\n
But it was a bilateral treaty between the US and the then Soviet Union, so it puts no restrictions on other major military actors like China.<\/p>\n
Pompeo said at a meeting with fellow NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday that there was no reason why the US \u201cshould continue to cede this crucial military advantage\u201d to rival powers.<\/p>\n
The nuclear-capable Russian cruise missiles are mobile and hard to detect and can hit cities in Europe with little or no warning, according to NATO, dramatically changing the security situation on the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A defiant Vladimir Putin on Wednesday threatened to develop nuclear missiles banned under a treaty with the United States after Washington gave Moscow a deadline to comply with the key arms control agreement. The latest spike in tensions came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw from a major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49322,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49319\/revisions\/49322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}