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LAST UPDATE | 21 Oct 2018
MOSCOW HAS WARNED US President Donald Trump that his plan to ditch a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty with Russia was a dangerous step.
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said this “would be a very dangerous step” and accused the US of risking international condemnation in a bid for “total supremacy” in the military sphere.
He insisted that Moscow observed “in the strictest way” the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF, while accusing Washington of “flagrant violations.”
The treaty was signed in 1987 by the then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
But Trump claimed last night that Russia had long violated it.
“We’re the ones who have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honored the agreement, but Russia has not unfortunately honored the agreement, so we’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out,” he told reporters.
Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years. I don’t know why president (Barack) Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons (while) we’re not allowed to.
Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton was set to arrive in Moscow this evening and meet next week with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
That comes ahead of what is expected to be a second summit between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin this year.
Bolton was also set to meet with Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a “possible meeting” was being prepared between Putin and Bolton.
Deputy foreign minister Ryabkov said today he hoped Bolton would explain the US plans “more substantively and clearly”.
The Trump administration has complained of Moscow’s deployment of 9M729 missiles, which Washington says can travel more than 500 kilometres, and thus violate the INF treaty.
The treaty, which banned missiles that could travel between 310 and 3,400 miles, resolved a crisis that had begun in the 1980s with the deployment of Soviet SS-20 nuclear-tipped, intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals.
US or Russia at fault?
A Russian foreign ministry official earlier accused Washington of implementing policy “toward dismantling the nuclear deal”.
Washington “has approached this step over the course of many years by deliberately and step by step destroying the basis for the agreement,” said the unnamed official, quoted by Russia’s three main news agencies.
The official accused the US of backing out of international agreements that put it on an equal footing with other countries because it wanted to protect American “exceptionalism.”
Russian senator Alexei Pushkov wrote on Twitter that the move was “the second powerful blow against the whole system of strategic stability in the world” after Washington’s 2001 withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
“And again, the initiator of the dissolution of the agreement is the US,” he added.
Bolton himself is pressuring Trump to leave the INF and has blocked talks to extend the New Start treaty on strategic missiles set to expire in 2021, according to The Guardian newspaper.
US withdrawal from the INF “will destroy any prospects of extending the New Start treaty,” the head of the Russian senate’s foreign affairs committee Konstantin Kosachev warned on Facebook.
A US withdrawal from the INF could also target China. As a non-signatory, Beijing can develop without constraints intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
US-Russia ties are under deep strain over accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The two countries are also at odds over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country’s civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.
On Friday, the US Justice Department indicted the finance chief of Russia’s leading troll farm for allegedly interfering with US elections, the first person to face charges involving the 2018 congressional mid-term vote.
Russia accused the US of fabricating the charges.
While no new summit between Trump and Putin has yet been announced, one is expected in the near future.
The two leaders will be in Paris on November 11 to attend commemorations marking the centenary of the end of World War I.
A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another potential date could be when both presidents attend the Group of 20 meeting on 30 November to 1 December.
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For a tiny insignificant country we really have it lucky the way we’ve access to US presidents who having been visiting the Emerald Isle now for decades. To have a sitting president who is also an employer in Ireland is just unprecedented. We constantly hear tripe about the EU and Ireland is at the ‘heart of Europe’ but America has done far more for us than being a colony to Germany/France.
@Windom Earle: Spot on.
@Windom Earle: spot on
@Windom Earle: who paid for the roads you drive on. Who pays farmers for there quotas. The EU has done for more for this little country in the last 40 years than a couple of US presidents.
@Windom Earle: Shhh stop talking sense. Boo Trump. I rEad bAd thiNGs ab0ut tRump in Sheep Weekly.
@Windom Earle: Trump is only interested in America, you think if he could bring Apple and Google back to America with all those jobs he wouldn’t?? He is not an employer here, unless you’re only counting Doonbeg?
@Windom Earle: Nothing to do with luck Wisdom….. Thanks to the millions upon millions of IMIGRANTS that came from Ireland. Helped build America and integrated into every Facit of life there. Who are now a very powerful voter generic to tap into come election time for votes. Hence…. WISDOM why we get access to their presence whenever they need the points swing in the poles.
@Windom Earle: what a load of nonsense
@Marc Power: what do you expect from a trump supporter?
@MyBrokenKnees: last I’ve heard we have given the eu 200+ billion in fishing rights for those roads and farm subsidies over the past 40 years. That combined with saddling gamblers debt on the children and grandchildren of our current tax payers ( myself and spouse ) included. The US dollar sent home from EMIGRANTS in the US kept this country’s poor fed for decades unlike the enslavement to EU debt imposed in the last decade which will have the majority of citizens on there knees in the very near future
@Eugene Conroy: good man eugene a slanted opinion of course sure theres no fish outside irelands fishing limits .. we gave the EU 200 billion worth of fish .. did they not have to catch them first and land a huge amount of them in our ports to have them processed and as for the money from America to feed the poor good God man get your head out of peig sayers..
@Eugene Conroy: Good man Eugene crawl and bow to your masters. To those quislings who sold out………!
@Thomas Quinn: millions upon millions .. why not use a trump ism altogether.. billions and billions
@MyBrokenKnees: our fish according to some commenter
@Windom Earle: Winddumb! I see your lobotomy was a success
@Windom Earle: __ Never have I seen so much complete and utter bowlocks in a comment on the Journal.
@Windom Earle: Trump only cares about 2 things, himself and people like him. I will admit that he isn’t the worst president that has been in the Oval Office but his ignorance and complete lack of common sense is nothing short of astonishing. I think 50 cent was right, he ran for president to get his name out there again so he could get back into the lime light, I don’t think he thought he could win and now he’s just sticking to the script that got him elected.
@MyBrokenKnees:
So we gained our freedom and independence from the Brits, only to run under the wing of the EU for roads and quotas. Can’t wait for the day when we the people remove the tolls on these roads.
@Eugene Conroy:
Spot on
@Candace: You are loyal to The Vatican State, not Ireland, hypocrite.
@Windom Earle: If America and the UK do well then we do well.
Its not a joke its a fact, support them while times are tough and they will remember it.
The M50 has paid for itself… The farmers have to limit production to fill quotas (This is not a good thing) The payment they get is called a subsidy for not over farming.
Ireland fought hard for its freedom and a boomer generation sold it for cheap money.
@Orla Smith:
How’s Maggie and the Klan, business good?:)
Like two pri(ks in a pod
Nigel got his kids German passports just in case.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: no he did not. Their mother is German and have been long term dual citizens.
Nigel Farage would not be entitled to get them a German passport.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: you’re nonsense has been emphatically fed back to you.
@Darius Guppy: Nigel Farage Freely admitted two of his children have both British and German Passports and his own great Grandfather Migrated from Germany to the UK. are contradicting him? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/18/nigel-farage-admits-his-children-hold-german-as-well-as-uk-passports
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh:
I think the point Darius was making is that Farage’s children obtained German passports by virtue of their German mother as your link to the Guardian article confirms.
Your original post implied that Farage personally obtained them and I assume you meant through his own lineage which was not the case.
@Charles Alexander: no I pointed out his own lineage as an example of Migration he opposes. Also his kids have long time German passports which would have required his authorization as kids getting passports require parents consent.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: His first wife was Irish and he has two children with her.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: Trump would love you, another fake news merchant for him to moan about.
Hope he has a great time over here!
I don’t care anymore about armchair protesters who know nothing about politics.
@TheFreeSpeechParty: And you do?
@Keith O’Reilly: He’s an Irexit and Gemma O’D supporter, The Unvotables, LOL! Cuckoo, cuckoo!
@TheFreeSpeechParty: The Democrats can’t touch him on the Politics . They are determined to get him 4 more years .
Imagine these two in the same room as Keith Duffy and the chunky bloke from Westlife that was married to the Atomic Kitten one. The amount of antimatter generated could potentially tear the universe to pieces
@Roy O’Rourke: That would make Keith Duffy the smartest guy in the room I reckon.
I only read today that, before Trump’s juvenile remark, Sadiq Khan called Trump a “20th century fascist”. What a stup1d thing to say! Remarkable how underreported this is but not surprising!
@Jack Simpson: Trump does fancy himself a fascist dictator you can see this with him cozying up to the like of Putin,Netanyahu and Kim Jong-un.
@Christopher Mulrooney: Trump is not a fascist. Neither are the people you mentioned. Trump derangement syndrome is widespread!
@Jack Simpson: __ He’s not a 20th Century fascist, he’s a 21st Century fascist.
@Jack Simpson: Khan is bringing London back a few centuries anyway .
Love is blind and dangerous liaisons are formed then again voters get what they deserve see what the love in with FG has achieved
@Martin Brennan: we get the politicians we deserve eh
Poor old Melania, always looks like a hostage, hopefully one day soon she’ll tell all.
@Orla Smith: I hear she’s putting out for the Donald tonight . Lucky Guy !
@Pl O’neill: Creep.
Donald is getting loads of Rumpy Pumpy from Melania this Holiday . Great Guy .
Nigel Farage = Great Guy . The Gretest Freedom Fighter since Michael Collins .
Another Great Victory in the Peterborough By-Election on Tuesday .
Nigel just gets better and better and better .
If Irish Republicans had their Nigel Farage All of Ireland would be Free .
Thick as thieves
@southside: But did you hear about the UK privatising their NHS to US companies???
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/04/trump-says-he-turned-down-corbyn-request-to-meet
Farage, there’s a ‘negative force’ for you!
Look on the bright side US about to turn the UK into a dependent vassal state with no say in US politics. Next PM will be a lap dog, and possibly grow two heads after eating US genetically modified food. The terra firma will be an aircraft carrier for US forces, who will pilage the local maidens UK once a empire now becomes a colony of US imperialism with Nigel Farage as governor general. Queen consigned to was model.
May Farage Jacimov???
Ah yes… But there is a storm, and then there are strikes in France, and then there are the French … Good luck
Nice to see Two Docks Happy
@pat seery: DUCKS
The poster of Farage kissing Trump in this story is problematic because of its homophobia.
The message it is clearly sending is that being gay is laughable.
The person carrying the banner is a homophobic bigot.
I loathe Trump and Farage and I loathe that poster for its vile message.
Trump has made enquiries regarding the
King position in U.K…..
When will commentators, journalists, sub-editors and people in general learn the difference between ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’? They’re over there with their friends. Not too difficult.
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