The United States has no reason to accuse Russia of breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Vladimir Ermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2018) The United States has no reason to accuse Russia of breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Vladimir Ermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said on Tuesday.
On September 18, US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy David Trachtenberg said at a Senate hearing that Russia remained "in defiance of its obligations" within the INF Treaty.
"The United Sates has no reason to say that Russia is a [INF] treaty breacher. However, this rhetoric continues being escalated," Ermakov said at a press conference held in the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.
In May, US President Donald Trump accused Russia of allegedly violating the INF Treaty and ordered US State Secretary Mike Pompeo to propose new sanctions on Russia in connection with these breaches. The Kremlin responded by saying that Russia had never violated the agreement.
The INF Treaty, which the Soviet Union and the United States signed in December 1987, requires the parties to eliminate all of their nuclear and conventional missiles and their launchers with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (311 to 3,417 miles). Russia and the United States have repeatedly accused each other of violating the INF Treaty.
