MOSCOW/WASHINGTON:Russia and China warned yesterday that a new US missile test had heightenedmilitary tensions and risked sparking an arms race, weeks after Washingtonripped up a Cold War-era weapons pact with Moscow. The US and Russia ditchedthe Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty this month after accusingeach other of violating the accord. Washington said the agreement also tied itshands in dealing with other powers such as China.
The US Departmentof Defense announced on Monday it had tested a type of ground-launched missilethat was banned under the 1987 INF agreement, which limited the use of nuclearand conventional medium-range weapons. "The US has obviously taken acourse towards escalation of military tensions. We won't react toprovocations," Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told statenews agency TASS. "We will not allow ourselves to get drawn into a costlyarms race." Ryabkov said the test showed Washington had been working onsuch missiles long before its official withdrawal from the deal.
In Beijing,Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: "This measure fromthe US will trigger a new round of an arms race, leading to an escalation ofmilitary confrontation." He warned that the test "will have a seriousnegative impact on the international and regional security situation". TheUS should "let go of its Cold War mentality" and "do more thingsthat are conducive to... international and regional peace andtranquillity", Geng added.
The missile waslaunched from the US Navy-controlled San Nicolas Island off the coast ofCalifornia. Speaking in France Monday before news of the US test launch broke,President Vladimir Putin said Russia would only deploy medium- or shorter-rangemissiles in response to similar moves by the US. "If the United Statesproduces such offensive systems, we will also do so," Putin said at apress conference before meetings with French leader Emmanuel Macron. Moscow andWashington have long criticized the treaty but Putin said it was the US thatmade the decision to "unilaterally" withdraw.
The missiletested on Sunday was a version of the nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile.The ground-launched version of the Tomahawk was removed from service after theINF was ratified. Earlier this month Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said theUS had already begun work to develop "mobile, conventional,ground-launched cruise and ballistic missile systems". "Now that wehave withdrawn, the Department of Defense will fully pursue the development ofthese ground-launched conventional missiles as a prudent response to Russia'sactions," Esper said.
But he alsoinsisted the US was not embarking on a new arms race. "The traditionalsense of an arms race has been in a nuclear context," he said. "Rightnow, we don't have plans to build nuclear-tipped INF-range weapons. It's theRussians who have developed non-compliant likely, possibly nuclear-tippedweapons."
The US launchcame weeks after a deadly explosion at a Russian testing site, which Westernexperts linked to Moscow's attempts to develop a nuclear-powered missile. Theblast killed five scientists and caused a spike in radiation levels, althoughRussian authorities have remained tightlipped on the nature of the explosion.US experts have said it could be linked to testing of the"Burevestnik" cruise missile, touted by Putin earlier this year. TheINF banned all land-based missiles that could travel between 500 and 5,500 kmin an effort to abolish the class of nuclear arms that then most threatenedEurope. - AFP