President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready to restart\ndiscussions with the U.S. over arms control and denied that the collapse of a\nsignificant nuclear missile treaty between the two nations would prompt an arms\nrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putin said there had \u201crecently been signs that Washington is beginning to consider resuming bilateral dialogue on a wide-ranging strategic agenda,\u201d despite its recent decision to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (or INF treaty) signed in 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that the achievement of concrete agreements in the field of arms control would contribute to strengthening international stability. Russia has the political will to work towards this. Now it\u2019s up to the U.S.,\u201d Putin said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he had spoken to President Donald Trump on the\nmatter during their recent meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty\n(G-20) summit in Japan last weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putin formally suspended Russia\u2019s participation in the INF\ntreaty with the U.S. on Wednesday. The treaty stated that neither country can\nproduce, possess, or flight-test ground-launched, intermediate-range ballistic\nand cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration said in October that it planned to\npull out of the treaty and confirmed its withdrawal in February, saying Russia\nhad violated the agreement by building a new missile system. Russia denies the\naccusations and has in turn accused the U.S. of violating the terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia has said the U.S.\u2032 missile defense system in eastern\nEurope is a violation of the agreement; the U.S. insists the system is to\ndefend itself and Europe from \u201crogue states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the U.S. has said Russia has violated the treaty with what it says is a \u201cnon-compliant missile system\u201d called the 9M729 (or SSC-8) cruise missile system. Russia refutes this, claiming that the missile conforms to INF treaty limits. In February, Putin warned of a resolute response if the U.S. decides to station missiles in countries neighboring Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No \u2018arms race,\u2019 Putin says<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The INF treaty was signed in 1987 and was designed to end decades of heightened insecurity surrounding arms fomented during the Cold War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. formally withdraws from the agreement on August 2.\nIn late June, NATO called on Russia to save the treaty by destroying the\ndisputed cruise missile system but there are no signs this will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The collapse of the INF treaty comes amid heightened\ngeopolitical tensions following Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well\nas its role in an uprising in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin told the Italian newspaper that the \u201ccollapse of the\ninternational security system\u201d had begun when the U.S. had unilaterally\nwithdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) in 2002 and that by now\npulling out of the INF treaty, the U.S. was \u201cde facto dismantling yet another\nagreement.\u201d He said another nuclear reduction treaty, the Strategic Arms\nReduction Treaty, also known as New START, was also under threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow we should go forward together to reduce strategic\narmaments remains unclear. In early 2021 the New START treaty (on\nintercontinental missiles) expires. However, we are not currently seeing any\nU.S. willingness to discuss its extension or to draft a completely new\nagreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin said that there should be a comparison of \u201chow much\nRussia spends on defense \u2014 about $48 billion \u2014 with the U.S. military budget \u2014\nover $700 billion. So what arms race are we talking about?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have no intention of getting involved in\nsuch a race, but we also have an obligation to ensure our security,\u201d Putin\nsaid.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready to restart discussions with the U.S. over arms control and denied that the collapse of a significant nuclear missile treaty between the two nations would prompt an arms race. Putin said there had \u201crecently been signs that Washington is beginning to consider resuming bilateral dialogue on a wide-ranging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-international-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3262,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions\/3262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}