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INF Treaty collapse should not trigger another arms race — UN under-secretary general

United Nations Under-Secretary General Izumi Nakamitsu said that "the INF Treaty’s ending should not be the catalyst for renewed and unconstrained competition in missile development"

UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu EPA-EFE/BRYAN R. SMITH

UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu

© EPA-EFE/BRYAN R. SMITH

UNITED NATIONS, August 22. /TASS/. The termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) should not trigger another round of an arms race, United Nations Under-Secretary General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said on Thursday.

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“The INF Treaty’s ending should not be the catalyst for renewed and unconstrained competition in missile development, acquisition and proliferation,” Nakamitsu said at an extraordinary meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the United States missile tests.

"I echo the Secretary-General’s call for all States to avoid destabilizing developments and to urgently seek agreement on a new common path for international arms control," she added.

On August 18, shortly after its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States conducted a flight test of a land-based cruise missile that had been banned by that treaty as its range exceeded 500 kilometers. US officials had repeatedly said that such a test could be carried out in late August.

Apart from that, the US Department of Defense plans to test an intermediate-range land-based ballistic missile in November. According to Pentagon, it would be a Pershing-2-type missile. US Pershing-2 missiles had been destroyed under the INF Treaty by 1991.

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