MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who took part in Friday’s session of the Russia-NATO Council, called on NATO nations to pool efforts to keep the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in place, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"The discussions focused on the crisis around the INF Treaty following the United States’ unilateral decision to withdraw from it. On our part, we provided every evidence to prove that accusations against Russia are groundless and are only meant to shift the responsibility for the breakdown of this major instrument that is vitally important for the entire European security architecture onto Russia," the ministry said.
"The Russian side called for joint efforts towards substantive and constructive work to find ways of saving the treaty," the ministry stressed.
The Russian foreign minister pointed to the "unprecedented character of Russia’s efforts in the interests of removing of mutual claims," citing as an example the Russian defense ministry’s briefing on the 9M729 cruise missile that was organized on January 23 and that was ignored by most of the NATO nations."
On January 15, Moscow and Washington held inter-agency consultations on the INF Treaty in Geneva. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said following the meeting that the US had not even tried to bring the positions of the parties closer, making it clear that it was determined to implement its plans to destroy the accord.
Andrea Thompson, the US State Department's Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, who led the US delegation, once again accused Russia of non-compliance with the accord, and said that Washington would start the process of pulling out of the INF Treaty on February 2, unless Moscow dismantled its 9M729 missile, which, according to Washington, violates the arms control deal.
The INF, or The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, Treaty was signed between the former Soviet Union and the United States on December 8, 1987 and entered into force on June 1, 1988. 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 INF Treaty 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).
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.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said after a NATO ministerial meeting on December 4 that his country would stop fulfilling its liabilities under the INF Treaty unless Russia returned to "full and verifiable" compliance with it within 60 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the following day that the US side had provided no evidence to prove Russia’s alleged violations of the treaty. He stressed that Russia is against dismantling this treaty but will have to react correspondingly if the United States withdraws from it.