In an escalation of tensions, the administration of US President Barack Obama accused Russia of conducting tests in violation of a 1987 nuclear missile treaty, calling the breach “a very serious matter” and going public with allegations that have simmered for some time.
The treaty confrontation comes at a highly strained time between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Putin’s grant of asylum to former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
An administration official said Obama notified Putin of the US determination in a letter on Monday. The finding will be included in a US Department of State annual report on compliance with arms control treaties that was to be released yesterday.
The US says Russia tested a new ground-launched cruise missile, breaking the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that former US president Ronald Reagan signed with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Russian officials say they have looked into the allegations and consider the matter closed.
The Obama administration has expressed its concern over possible violations before, but this is the first time that it has formally accused Russia of violating the treaty. It comes in the wake of the downed Malaysian airliner in Ukraine and as the US and the EU seek to ramp up sanctions against Russia, offering the administration a convenient time to release the report, which had been due to come out in April.
Two officials said the US is prepared to hold high-level discussions on the issue immediately and want assurances that Russia will comply with the treaty requirements going forward. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly by name ahead of yesterday’s report.
The New York Times first reported the US move on Monday evening.
In raising the issue now, the US appears to be placing increased pressure on Russia and trying to further isolate it from the international community. The EU and the US plan to announce new sanctions against Russia this week in the face of US evidence that Russia has continued to assist separatist forces in Ukraine.
The formal finding comes in the wake of congressional pressure on the White House to confront Russia over the allegations of cheating on the treaty. The treaty banned all US and Russian land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 480km and 5,470km.
The officials said the Obama administration has informed the US Congress and US allies of its decision to seek Russian compliance.
Indeed Obama, who has made nuclear disarmament a key foreign policy aim, has little interest in having Russia pull out of the treaty altogether.
Obama won US Senate ratification of the New START accord, which took effect in February 2011 and requires the US and Russia to reduce the number of their strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 by February 2018.
Obama last year announced that he wants to cut the number of US nuclear arms by another third and that he would “seek negotiated cuts” with Russia, a goal now complicated by the accusation of a missile treaty violation.
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica — known as Big Ben — has been spotted by satellite spewing lava. The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100km southwest of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago. The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Thursday, and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image. The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak.
SYMBOLIC: The bill sponsored by a cross-party group of lawmakers was hailed as a ‘historic moment’ in the fight for marriage equality, but is unlikely to pass Lawmakers in South Korea have proposed the country’s first same-sex marriage bill, in a move hailed by civic groups as a defining moment in the fight for equality. The marriage equality bill, proposed by South Korean lawmaker Jang Hye-yeong of the minor opposition Justice Party and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers across all the main parties, seeks to amend the country’s civil code to allow same-sex marriage. The bill is unlikely to pass, but forms part of a trio of bills expected to increase pressure on the government to expand the idea of family beyond traditional criteria. The two other bills relate to
TIME TO TALK: Among China’s grievances were economic and trade issues related to Taiwan, but both countries emphasized the need to maintain communication US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) on Friday raised complaints about China’s state-led economic policies during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤), who objected to US tariffs and trade policies, as well as issues related to Taiwan, their offices said. However, statements from the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce emphasized the need for Washington and Beijing to maintain communication on trade. “Ambassador Tai highlighted the need to address the critical imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade policy,” the USTR said in a statement released after the
RSS