US President Donald Trump on Monday said the US is ready to build up its nuclear arsenal after announcing that it is abandoning a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, as Russia warned the withdrawal could cripple global security.
Trump sparked concern globally by saying on Saturday that he wanted to jettison the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by former US president Ronald Reagan and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
In explaining his decision, Trump told reporters in Washington that Russia had “not adhered to the spirit of that agreement, or to the agreement itself.”
“Until people come to their senses, we will build it up,” he said, referring to the US’ nuclear stockpile. “This should have been done years ago.”
“It’s a threat to whoever you want. And it includes China. And it includes Russia,” Trump added. “And it includes anybody else who wants to play that game. You can’t do that. You can’t play that game.”
However, Russia has said that abandoning the agreement would be a major blow to global security.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton has been visiting Moscow in the wake of Trump’s announcement that he wants to do away with the INF treaty.
Signed in 1987, the treaty resolved a crisis over Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals.
After a meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev on Monday, Bolton said that the Russians had insisted that Moscow had not breached the treaty.
“The position was very firmly announced by Russia that they did not believe that they were breaching the INF treaty. In fact they said: ‘You are breaching the INF treaty,’” Bolton said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
“You can’t bring somebody into compliance who does not think they are in breach,” Bolton said, adding that the treaty seems to have run its course.
Trump’s announcement has raised global concerns, with the European Commission urging the US and Russia to pursue talks to preserve the treaty and China calling on Washington to “think twice.”
“The US and the Russian Federation need to remain in a constructive dialogue to preserve this treaty and ensure it is fully and verifiably implemented,” said Maja Kocijancic, the EU spokeswoman for foreign affairs and security policy.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said a unilateral withdrawal from the treaty “will have a multitude of negative effects.”
However, Bolton said that the UK, Japan and a number of other countries supported the US position.
Analysts have warned that the latest rift between Moscow and Washington could have lamentable consequences, dragging Russia into a new arms race.
Putin last week raised eyebrows by saying that the Russians would “go to heaven” in the event of a nuclear war and that Moscow would not use nuclear weapons first.
“The aggressor will have to understand that retaliation is inevitable, that it will be destroyed and that we, as victims of aggression, as martyrs, will go to heaven,” he said. “They will simply croak because they won’t even have time to repent.”
Putin and Trump are to be in Paris on Nov. 11 to attend commemorations marking 100 years since the end of World War I.
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