Berlin To Keep Supporting Nuclear Disarmament Despite US Position On INF Treaty - Minister

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st October, 2018) Germany will continue its efforts in the sphere of nuclear disarmament despite Washington's "devastating" decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia, Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office Niels Annen said on Sunday.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced that he was going to pull out of the 1987 INF deal with Russia, arguing that Moscow had been violating the treaty.

"President Trump's decision to pull out of the INF Treaty is devastating. We will continue to work toward nuclear disarmament. Russia is required to respect its obligations as well," Annen said on his official Twitter account.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier on Sunday that Washington had no reasons to accuse Moscow of violating the agreement. The diplomat added that the US "fanciful" claims had not been substantiated over the years and that the possible withdrawal from the agreement would benefit certain political forces in Washington that wanted to continue to breach the INF treaty.

The INF Treaty was signed by former President 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).

According to the treaty, the agreement has an unlimited duration and each side can terminate it by providing compelling evidence to substantiate its decision.

Germany is not described as a nuclear-weapon state by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), however, it is one of the countries that are part of the NATO nuclear sharing concept. Berlin signed the NPT agreement and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), among other agreements on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.