One of the architects of a landmark nuclear treaty between Russia and the US has told Donald Trump it would be a “mistake” to pull out of the agreement.
Mr Trump has said the US will quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was drawn up to protect America and its allies in Europe and the Far East, because of violations by Moscow.
The deal is supposed to prohibit the US and Russia from possessing, producing or test-firing a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles – and Moscow has denied not sticking to those terms.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who co-signed the Cold War-era deal with President Ronald Reagan in 1987, questioned whether Mr Trump understood the potential consequences of the move.
“Under no circumstances should we tear up old disarmament agreements,” he told Interfax news agency.
“Do they really not understand in Washington what this could lead to? Quitting the INF is a mistake.”
Mr Trump made his controversial announcement during a campaign stop in Elko, Nevada, on Saturday.
He said: “Russia has not adhered to the agreement. So we are going to terminate the agreement.
“Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years. I don’t know why President 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.”
The Kremlin described the decision as a “very dangerous step”, while Germany called it “regrettable”.
Heiko Maas, German foreign affairs minister, said the near 30-year-old pact was “an important pillar of our European security architecture” and that talk of scrapping it “raises difficult questions for us and Europe”.
And a Russian foreign ministry official, quoted by three news agencies, responded by saying that Washington’s “main motive is a dream of a unipolar world”, one that will not be realised.
They accused the White House of implementing policy “toward dismantling the nuclear deal”, and that it had prepared to do it “over the course of many years by deliberately and step-by-step destroying the basis for the agreement”.
