UPDATE - Czech President Believes Solution to Situation With INF Treaty Exists

BLAGOVESHCHENSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th December, 2018) Czech President Milos Zeman believes that there is a solution for the Russian-US conflict around the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

"If there are technical characteristics of these missiles that violate this agreement either from the Russian or from the US side, it's very simple to show these characteristics and agree. Of course, I want all agreements to exist, because without these agreements there will be an arms race," Zeman told the Vesti Nedeli show on Russia's NTV broadcaster.

He added that he did not believe in the possibility of a military conflict between Russia and NATO.

"A military attack on the Baltic countries would be a political and even a military suicide," the Czech president said.

The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 between the Soviet Union and the United States. The agreement obligated the parties to destroy their ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles whose ranges are between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (from 311 to 3,317 miles).

On Tuesday, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said the United States would suspend its adherence to the INF Treaty in 60 days unless Russia returned to full compliance with the agreement. Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations that it breached the treaty.

Western politicians, most often from the Baltic states, Poland and the United Kingdom, use the "Russian threat" narrative in their statements on a regular basis. At the same time, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it would never attack any of the NATO countries. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, NATO is well aware that Russia has no plans to attack anyone, but simply uses the narrative as a pretext to deploy more equipment and battalions near Russian borders.