Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the United States is determined to leave a landmark Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty with Moscow, despite warnings that the move will trigger a new nuclear arms race.
Lavrov said on Friday that the Trump administration has made its decision and will leave the treaty “very soon.”
US President Donald Trump has said that Washington would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which was signed towards the end of Cold War in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Trump also vowed to rebuild his country’s nuclear arsenal.
The treaty – seen as a milestone in ending the Cold War arms race between the two superpowers – banned ground-launch nuclear missiles with ranges from 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers and led to the elimination of nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles.
Trump cited Russia’s “violations” of the deal…