Pompeo announces US will withdraw from INF treaty - Russia threatens retaliation

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 01 Feb 2019 19:56 UTC

© REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

Update: As we previewed below, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the US will withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty immediately, prompting threats of a Russian "response" from Moscow.

According to RT, Pompeo said the US could return to compliance with the treaty if Moscow meets Washington's demands within the next 180 days. To convince the US to back down, Washington has insisted that Russia cease development of a new cruise missile. Moscow has repeatedly denied claims that it's in violation of the treaty.

The withdrawal, which has been expected for months, will formally take place on Saturday.

Trump said the US's NATO allies support the decision to withdraw from the treaty, which has been a cornerstone of European security for years. The US has also expressed concerns that its compliance with the treaty has benefited China, which isn't a party to the agreement.

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In a sign that Russia might soon be deploying those new hypersonic missiles that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been showing off lately, Reuters reported that the US is preparing to suspend compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing four US officials, opening the door to the reintroduction of medium-range ground-based nuclear arms in the area around Russia.

The officials said the the suspension will kick off a six month countdown that could lead to the dissolution of the treaty. However, Washington could opt to remain a part of the pact if Moscow decides to become compliance with the 1987 Cold War-era treaty.

The decision comes after the US and Russia revealed on Thursday that they had failed to work out their differences on the treaty, something that analysts have warned could be the first step in a new Cold War-style arms race - or worse. Both sides have accused the other of violating the terms of the historic treaty, which called for a ban on all land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles, according to NBC News.

This latest step comes after the Trump Administration repeatedly warned Russia that it would leave the treaty if Moscow didn't comply with the family by Feb. 2. Both sides have been meeting in Beijing, but Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that the talks had failed.

"Unfortunately, there is no progress," he told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti according to a translation by Reuters. "As far as we understand, the next step is coming, the next phase begins, namely the phase of the United States stopping its obligations under the INF, which will evidently happen this coming weekend."

Andrea Thompson, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, said Washington would most likely announce the suspension of the INF Treaty in the coming days.

"The Russians still aren't in acknowledgment that they are in violation of the treaty," she said. However, Thompson did add that "diplomacy is never done."

Of course, this doesn't bode well for renegotiating the New START arms control treaty that calls for the mutual reduction of the US and Russia's nuclear arsenals.

Comment: One expert, Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Environment think tank, told RT that the US seeks to protect its crumbling hegemony by leaving INF Treaty:

The US uses [Russia] as a pretext to withdraw from the agreement and keep its face." The treaty interferes with their policies and throws obstacles in the path of the American military industrial complex, which is so "cherished" by President Donald Trump

Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense journal and member of the Russian Defense Ministry's public council added:

The US particularly wants to continue the military build-up on the Russian borders to raise the stakes in its "power game" against Russia

Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of the Fatherland's Arsenal journal, told RT that China, which currently possesses the largest arsenal of intermediate range missiles, is Washington's other major target. The US seeks to stop Beijing's advancements in the South China Sea as it fears to lose control over the Asia-Pacific region.

Russian officials have also noted how this decision put US allies in Europe in a much more precarious situation. Vyacheslav Trubnikov, the former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, noted, explaining that the European countries might become targets of the Russian weapons if the US decided to deploy their new missiles there

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian Senate's International Affairs Committee, commented on the news:

The fact that the US opted for the "language of ultimatums" from the very beginning also shows that the decision on the withdrawal from the INF Treaty was taken by the US administration long ago, and Washington "never intended to reach an agreement" on the issue

The senator said that the US and its NATO allies ignored all of Russia's attempts to preserve the accord, both when Moscow initiated a discussion on the issue in the NATO-Russia Council, and when it staged a public presentation of the missile in question. "They cannot hear you if they do not want to," Kosachev noted, adding that "Pompeo announced something that was decided long ago and nothing Russia could do would have changed it."