Berlin Calls On Washington To Remain In US-Russian INF Treaty - Foreign Ministry

BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Germany calls on the United States to refrain from plans on pulling out from the US-Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF Treaty) as Europe should not be a platform for debates on nuclear weapons, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday.

Last month, US President Donald Trump announced the country's withdrawal from the INF Treaty over the alleged Russian violations of the agreement. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Moscow will "certainly" respond to the US pullout from the treaty.

"We are in favor of the United States not being recklessly withdrawing from the INF Treaty, because we do not want Europe to become a platform for a debate on nuclear weapons," Maas said in his address to the Bundestag.

The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 by then leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and then US President Ronald Reagan, who agreed to destroy all cruise or ground-launched ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 and 3,400 miles).