DAR AL HARB - RUSSIA / NEO-SOVIETS: WE MAY DROP OUT OF THE INTERMEDIATE RANGE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY

Russia may drop out of arms-reduction treaty

MOSCOW: A top Russian general said Thursday that Moscow might unilaterally drop out of a key Soviet-era arms reduction treaty with the United States that had banned medium-range nuclear missiles, Russian news agencies reported.

General Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the military's general staff, said Russia could pull out of the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated between the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

The decision would depend, he said, on whether the United States completed plans to deploy components of missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — plans that have drawn sharp criticism from President Vladimir Putin.

"We shall see what our American partners do," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Interfax, ITAR-Tass and RIA Novosti. "Their actions to deploy missile defense sites in Europe are inexplicable."

Putin has said he does not trust American claims that the planned European missile-defense system is intended to counter threats from Iran, and he has warned that Russia would take retaliatory measures.

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Ahhh good old fashioned blackmail, nuclear blackmail at that...


Pertinent Links:

1) Russia may drop out of arms-reduction treaty


Pertinent Links:

1) Russia may drop out of arms-reduction treaty