MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Head of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev is disappointed with the results of the voting on Russia-initiated resolution supporting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), saying that atlanticism has outperformed common sense and instinct for self-preservation.
On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly voted down the resolution in support of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Forty-three nations voted for the document, forty-six were against and another seventy-eight abstained.
"Atlanticism has outperformed common sense and even instinct for self-preservation. Those who voted against the draft will most of all suffer from the INF’s disruption - European countries, the population of which once strongly opposed the deployment of American Pershings in a similar situation and pushed the sides towards a dialogue. The voting is another shame of Europe, which has demonstrated that only one NATO member - the US - has sovereignty in the security issues," Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page.
He added that "there was no shattering effect." "In fact, far more countries support our position, many of them simply being afraid of Washington’s anger," he noted. "Western discipline is becoming a self-reliant global threat, and the elimination of a major treaty on arms control will be on the conscience of not only Washington, but its allies, all Europeans should be aware of that," he added.
According to Kosachev, the voting on the resolution "is disappointing, of course," but concurrently he clearly highlights "who stands for preserving the most important foundational tenets of global security, and who supports solidarity and American popularity." "As our representative in the US fairly noted, the draft by no means pointed who is right and who is wrong in the current situation, it contained not a single anti-American or anti-NATO provision. Its only aim was to demonstrate the support of UN members to diplomatic efforts on solving the existing issues," he emphasized.
INF Treaty
The INF, or The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, Treaty was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on December 8, 1987 and entered into force on June 1, 1988. It covered deployed and non-deployed ground-based short-range missiles (from 500 to 1,000 kilometers) and intermediate-range missiles (from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers).
In 1992, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the treaty was multilateralized with the former Soviet republics - Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine - as successors. The US accused Russia of violating the treaty for the first time in July 2014. Since then, Washington has been repeating its claims on many occasions, while Moscow has been rejecting them and advancing counter-claims concerning the implementation of the treaty by the US side.
US President Donald Trump said on October 20 that Washington would withdraw from the INF Treaty because Russia was violating the terms of the agreement. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov described this decision as a dangerous step. Washington’s decision came under criticism from Berlin and Beijing. However, London expressed support to the US’ stance and NATO placed responsibility for Trump’s decision on Russia, which, it claims, may violate the treaty.