President Donald Trump quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev, citing “deliberate violations” by Russia. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Nato leaders backed the move. Mr Raab tweeted: “Russia has caused the INF Treaty to collapse by secretly developing and deploying a treaty-violating missile system which can target Europe’s capitals. Their contempt for the rules-based international system threatens European security.”
The US accused Russia of deploying “multiple battalions” of a cruise missile throughout Russia, “with the ability to strike critical European targets”.
America was yesterday backed by Nato which dismissed a Russian call for a moratorium on short and intermediate-range missiles.
A Nato statement said: “Russia today remains in violation of the INF Treaty, despite years of US and Allied engagement, including a final opportunity over six months to honour its treaty obligations.
“As a result, the United States’ decision to withdraw from the Treaty, a decision fully supported by NATO Allies, is now taking effect.”
NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said: “There are no new US missiles, no new NATO missiles in Europe, but there are more and more new Russian missiles.”
But Russia denied breaking the treaty, claiming the range of its new missile, the Novator 9M729 which Nato calls the SSC-8, puts it outside the treaty.
If the broader New Start treaty is not extended or replaced when it expires in early 2021, there will be no legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time in nearly 50 years.
Mr Trump wants a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and to include China, which is not bound by the Washington-Moscow pacts.
Meanwhile, North Korea carried out its third missile test in eight days.
The rogue state, which claims to be able to hit the US with nuclear weapons, yesterday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea near South Korea.
It follows a similar test on July 25 and that of a rocket launcher last Wednesday.
The test firings are intended to pressure the US and South Korea into dropping military exercises.
They also coincide with a meeting of US and East Asia foreign ministers in Bangkok.
The missiles were fired despite Kim’s talks with Mr Trump at the end of June.
Mr Trump said the firings did not violate Kim’s promises: “We never made an agreement on that. I have no problem.”
North Korea has long sought to develop nuclear warheads for its missiles.