Gorbachev warns on US nuclear treaty plan

(FASTNEWS|COLOMBO) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says the United States (US) President Trump’s plan to withdraw from a key Cold War nuclear weapons treaty is a reversal of efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament.

Mr. Gorbachev – who signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with President Reagan in 1987 – questioned the plan’s intelligence.

President Trump said Russia had been “Violating [The INF] for many years”.

Russia has condemned the plans and threatened to retaliate.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin would be seeking an explanation from visiting US National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Germany was the first US ally to criticise the move, with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urging Washington to consider the consequences both for Europe and for future disarmament efforts.

The INF banned ground-launched medium-range missiles, with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometres.

It was signed near the end of the Cold War, a period of relations between the US and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1989 marked by intense international tension and overshadowed by the threat of nuclear conflict.

In the past five decades the US and Russia have signed a range of joint agreements to limit and reduce their substantial nuclear arsenals.