INF treaty issue may be resolved through open dialogue between Russia and US

April 7, 2017 - PRLog -- The growing tension around the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty of 8 December 1987 continues to complicate the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington, registering mutual complaints against each other over non-compliance with the document.

In March 2017, the Pentagon accused Russia of violating the "spirit and letter" of the INF Treaty and deploying banned ground-based cruise missiles (GLCM).

"The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Russian leadership has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the obligations under the INF Treaty.

"There were no violations on our part. The United States claim the opposite, but they do not provide any specific information that could be verified to clarify the situation," he said to the Media.

Russia's minister stressed that Moscow has very serious questions to the United States concerning certain 'liberties' with the implementation of this treaty by the Americans themselves.

"[This] concerns the program for creating 'targets' similar in characteristics to medium-range and shorter-range missiles; using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) falling under the definition of ground-launched cruise missiles with intermediate range, and launchers as part of ground-based anti-missile systems which can be used for firing cruise missiles," Russian Foreign Minister explained.

Commenting on the difficult situation, Goetz Neuneck, deputy director and head of Interdisciplinary Research Group on Disarmament, Arms Control and Risk Technologies of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, said that today the future of the INF Treaty is put into question.

"Since 2014 the US State Department claims that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the INF treaty. Now it says that Russia has deployed two battalions of new SSC-X-8 GLCM, […] but details are not yet published. Russia has made counteraccusations: it claims that the US deployment of Mk 41 launcher tubes for the Aegis BMD interceptors are not INF-compliant because the launchers have been used for testing the Tomahawk GLCMs and could be used for the deployment of offensive GLCMs," he told PenzaNews.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/63846-2017