US NATIONAL security adviser John Bolton faces high-tension talks in Moscow after President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.
Trump’s announcement that the United States would leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty brought criticism on Sunday from Russian officials and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who signed the treaty in 1987 with president Ronald Reagan.
Trump said Russia has violated terms of the treaty that prohibit the US and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying ground-launched nuclear cruise missiles with a range of 300 to 3400 miles.
Russia has denied allegations that it has produced and tested such a missile.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said that a US withdrawal would mean “mankind is facing full chaos in the nuclear weapons sphere”.
“Washington’s desire to turn back politics cannot be supported. Not only Russia, but also all who cherish the world, especially a world without nuclear weapons, must declare this,” Gorbachev added.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said the UK stands “absolutely resolute” with Washington on the issue and called on the Kremlin to “get its house in order”.
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