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Restoration of INF treaty not on agenda for now — Kremlin spokesman

The United States suspended its obligations under the treaty on February 2, 2019, based on alleged violations by Russia

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. The possibility of restoring the operation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) between Russia and the United States has not yet been discussed, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the daily Izvestia, published on Friday.

"Not for the time being," Peskov replied to the corresponding question.

The Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles was signed by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan in Washington on December 8, 1987. The INF Treaty became the first ever document on the elimination of an entire class of weapons. Its signatories pledged to eliminate all ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles of medium range (from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers) and short range (from 500 to 1,000 kilometers). Also, they agreed not to produce or test new INF missiles.

The United States suspended its obligations under the treaty on February 2, 2019, based on alleged violations by Russia. Washington first mentioned this in July 2014. According to the US administration, Russia violated the treaty by creating the 9M729 missile. Moscow dismissed these accusations, and presented a number of counterclaims, concerning, for example, the elements of the US missile defense system in Europe. In September 2019, it became known that Russian President Vladimir Putin had addressed the leaders of several countries, including NATO members, with a proposal for a moratorium on the deployment of INF weapons in Europe and other regions.

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