US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has claimed that the country does not intend to quit arms control agreements, in a statement further elaborating earlier comments made by President Donald Trump about leaving a critical nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
“Eventually we have to look reality in the eye, that is not to mean that we are walking away from arms control. But arms control must be more than words on a paper, it must be actions,” said Mattis on Saturday while attending a regional security summit in Bahrain. “We are in close collaboration with our European allies… and we will continue to collaborate very closely with the treaty and its implications for European security.”
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which was signed towards the end of Cold War in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, was seen as a milestone in ending the Cold War arms race between the two…