NOVOBUREISKY VILLAGE /Amur Region/, August 3. /TASS/. Russia remains committed to the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty and hopes that the United States will comply with its obligations under that document, too.
"Russia has been and remains committed to its obligations under the INF treaty contrary to some statements made up to this day," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media. "And, of course, we expect our partners under the treaty to observe their international liabilities in this context."
Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump did not discuss that treaty when they met in Hamburg, Germany last month.
Earlier the newspaper Politico said the US Congress was considering ways of making the Pentagon start the production of intermediate and shorter range missiles in violation of the INF treaty, which might trigger another spiral of tensions between Moscow and Washington. According to its sources, both houses of the US Congress are conducting discussions that boil down to making the US Armed Forces resume the production of intermediate range missiles outlawed under the 1987 treaty. The US legislators argue that Russia has already violated that agreement and time is ripe for Washington to retaliate. The newspaper says at the same time that such an approach in Washington has strong opponents, who are certain that such a move by the United States might considerably increase the risk of a nuclear confrontation at a time when the relations between the two countries are at a critically low level.