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Swordsmyth
01-15-2019, 06:40 PM
Delegations from Russia and the United States are meeting in Geneva to discuss the status and potential future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Tass reported Jan. 15. Russian diplomats have signaled a willingness to enter a dialogue over the future of the treaty after the United States gave the Kremlin a 60-day ultimatum to comply with the provisions before Washington would announce its withdrawal; Moscow, however, has dismissed the possibility of simply adhering to the ultimatum.

More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situation-report/russia-us-delegations-meet-geneva-discuss-inf-treaty

Swordsmyth
01-15-2019, 08:15 PM
Talks have made no progress in resolving the United States' intention to withdraw from a nuclear arms treaty, U.S. and Russian diplomats said Tuesday.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met in Geneva with U.S. Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson about the dispute over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.


"On the whole, we are forced to state that there is no progress. The US position is frozen in its uncompromising and peremptory demands," Ryabkov said, state news agency Tass reported.
Thompson said in a statement that "the meeting was disappointing as it is clear Russia continues to be in material breach of the treaty and did not come prepared to explain how it plans to return to full and verifiable compliance."

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/russia-no-progress-resolving-nuclear-arms-pact-dispute-163057515.html

Swordsmyth
01-16-2019, 09:00 PM
According to statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, discussions between U.S. and Russian delegations on the future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) have not led to any productive solutions, RBC reported Jan. 16. Lavrov said the U.S. position was to stick to its previously issued ultimatum by demanding the destruction of all 9M729 cruise missiles and their land-based launchers in Russia's inventory. Russia countered the demands by offering the United States access to information about the missile to prove it is not nuclear-capable, but Washington reportedly rejected the offer. The Russian foreign minister also said that Moscow remains open to attempts to salvage the INF.

More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situation-report/russia-us-inf-treaty-discussions-fail

Swordsmyth
01-17-2019, 06:36 PM
Andrea Thompson, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, has reaffirmed Washington's intention to begin withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) by Feb. 2 after a U.S.-Russia meeting in Geneva failed to provide any solutions to save the deal, The Guardian reported Jan. 16.

More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situation-report/russia-us-official-reaffirms-us-decision-begin-inf-treaty-withdrawal-feb-2

Swordsmyth
01-24-2019, 07:06 PM
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday that he had discussed the INF disarmament treaty with Russia and had made clear that he expected Moscow to stop violating it so the accord has a chance of survival."I have spoken to my Russian colleague about it and told him we're banking on Russia correcting its violations of the treaty and disarming its cruise missiles so that the INF treaty still has a chance," Maas said.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-russia-needs-stop-violating-inf-treaty-survive-095033993.html

Swordsmyth
01-24-2019, 07:10 PM
Russia showed foreign military attaches on Wednesday a new cruise missile that the United States says breaches a landmark arms control pact, billing it as an exercise in transparency it hoped would persuade Washington to stay in the treaty.Washington has threatened to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), alleging that the new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729 (called SSC-8 by NATO), violates the pact, which bans either side from stationing short and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.
Russia denies that. It says the missile's range puts it outside the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty it wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles.
The Russian lobbying effort comes as the clock ticks down toward Feb. 2, the date when Washington has said it will begin the process of pulling out of the pact unless Russia verifiably destroys the new missile system altogether, something it has refused to do.
Russia displayed the new missile system at a military theme park outside Moscow to foreign military attaches and journalists. A senior defense ministry official explained the weapon's characteristics in detail as a soldier highlighted different parts with a laser pointer.
The missile has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles), which meant it was fully compliant with the INF treaty, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Matveyevsky, head of Russia's Missile Troops and Artillery, said.
The United States had previously rejected a Russian offer to look at the contested missile, in what is known as a 'static display', because it said such an exercise would not allow it to verify the true range of its warheads.
The Russian Defence Ministry said diplomats from the United States, Britain, France and Germany had been invited to attend the static display, but declined to attend.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told a news briefing before the display that the United States had made clear through diplomatic channels that its decision to exit the pact was final and that it was not open to dialogue.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later said that Russia had suggested the two nations hold talks on the issue on the sidelines of a meeting of the P5 nuclear powers in Beijing later this month, but had not received "a concrete reply".
She said Russia remained open to talks anyway. Western diplomats have played down the chances of the two countries resolving their differences at that meeting if it takes place.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-effort-defuse-u-nuclear-dispute-displays-missile-111114634.html

Swordsmyth
01-25-2019, 02:16 AM
The United States has offered to hold arm control talks with Russia during a United Nations meeting in Beijing next week that almost certainly would include a feud over a Cold War-era treaty, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson reiterated that the Trump administration will "suspend our obligations" under the disputed pact if Russia fails to return to compliance by Feb. 2. But the move is "reversible" and Washington has made no final decision on announcing a full U.S. withdrawal, she said.
"I'm not particularly optimistic" that Russia will return to compliance, she told reporters at a breakfast.


Thompson said that talks she held last week in Geneva with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made no headway toward resolving the dispute.
But, she added, she has offered to discuss with Ryabkov arms control issues that almost certainly would include the feud on the sidelines of a U.N. Security Council meeting on nonproliferation next week in Beijing.
"I've told the deputy foreign minister if and when it's appropriate and they have tangible next steps, that I'm willing to talk," Thompson said. "But to come to the table and hear the same story line from the past five years isn't a productive use of our time."
Thompson rejected the first unveiling in Moscow of the Novator for diplomats and journalists on Wednesday as proof that it complies with the INF Treaty.
"A static display of a missile cannot tell you how far a missile flies," she said.
The United States has presented Russia "time after time after time" with data showing that the missile flew more than the treaty's proscribed 500-km range during one of the tests conducted between 2008 and 2013, she said.
It also has presented Moscow with a plan for the "verifiable" destruction of the missile systems. Moscow has countered with its own unacceptable proposal for demonstrating the missile, she said.
"They would have controlled the environment," she said on the Russian plan. "When you go and select the missile and you select the fuel and you control all of those parameters, characteristics, you are controlling the outcome of the test."

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-offered-hold-talks-arm-control-issues-russia-141308508.html

Swordsmyth
01-25-2019, 05:21 PM
NATO and Russia failed on Friday to resolve a dispute over a new Russian missile that Western allies say is a threat to Europe, bringing closer Washington's withdrawal from a landmark arms control treaty.At a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, envoys from NATO's 29 members renewed their call on Moscow's deputy foreign minister to destroy a nuclear-capable cruise missile system before a Feb. 2 deadline.

One NATO diplomat said the U.S. ambassador to the alliance told the assembled diplomats and officials that Washington would start the pull-out process from the INF on Feb. 2. The U.S. embassy was not immediately available for comment.


Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the closed-door meeting that it was the United States that was breaching the treaty, alliance diplomats said.
Ryabkov, who spoke in both Russian and English, cited the U.S.-built NATO missile defense system in Romania as a treaty breach. NATO says the shield is designed to shoot down rockets from Iran, not from Russia.
Separately, the Russian foreign ministry also accused the United States of reviving a Cold War-era plan to deploy a missile defense system in space.
While NATO diplomats described Friday's meeting as calm and professional, Stoltenberg said Russia had shown no willingness to compromise. But he and some European nations such as Germany held out hope for diplomatic progress during the six-month withdrawal process.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/nato-russia-meeting-fails-break-deadlock-over-russian-112216325.html

Swordsmyth
02-01-2019, 11:47 PM
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the United States would suspend its compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Reuters reported Feb. 1. Pompeo added that Washington might reverse its decision if Russia, which it has accused of developing weapons that violate the pact, returns to compliance within a 180-day window until the withdrawal is complete.

More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situation-report/russia-us-washington-halts-compliance-inf-treaty

Swordsmyth
02-02-2019, 04:54 PM
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned under its terms.
Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement.


“Our US partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the same,” the Russian president said (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/59763). “They say that they are doing research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing.”
Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles to Europe unless the US does it first — a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.
Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's ballistic missile capabilities.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-02/tit-tat-russia-suspends-inf-treaty-putin-slams-us-demolishing-intl-order

Swordsmyth
02-03-2019, 01:59 AM
China on Saturday said it opposes the US decision to withdraw from a landmark Cold War nuclear missile treaty and urged Washington and Russia to hold "constructive" discussions.

"China is opposed to the US withdrawal and urges the US and Russia to properly resolve differences through constructive dialogue," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said in a statement.

Washington also has an eye on China as the INF pact restricts the United States, but not the rising Asian power.
US officials say that some 95 percent of China's ballistic and cruise missiles -- a core part of Beijing's defense strategy -- would violate the INF treaty if China were a party to it.

China's foreign ministry ruled out the possibility of negotiating a new multilateral pact that includes Beijing.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/china-opposes-us-withdrawal-inf-180443700.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_index

Swordsmyth
02-07-2019, 09:47 PM
Russia welcomed an offer by U.S. President Donald Trump to renegotiate a landmark nuclear missile pact after he quit the agreement, while cautioning that it’s received no specific proposals yet.“We saw President Trump’s statement about the possibility of a new treaty, which should include other countries,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. “When our American colleagues actually get to the point where they give us something concrete, we will look at this with interest and I hope in a positive way.”
Trump said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that the U.S. may be open to negotiating another agreement to replace the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, one that could include China as well as Russia.

Ryabkov also warned that time is running out to begin talks on extending the other key nuclear weapons accord between Russia and the U.S., the New START treaty, before it expires in 2021.
Negotiations must be wrapped up by the end of the year, before the U.S. enters a new campaign period for the 2020 elections, said Ryabkov, who expressed alarm at what he described as assurances by U.S. officials that there’s still plenty of time to resolve the issue.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/russia-welcomes-trump-offer-nuclear-120944487.html