NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia to comply with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Wednesday evening, 30 January, while the deadline set by the United States before it begins the withdrawal process is Saturday 2 February (see EUROPE 12174).
“All NATO Allies agree that it is important that Russia comes back into compliance in a transparent, verifiable way. This is urgent, because the 60-day period will end this weekend”, he recalled on arriving at the informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Bucharest. “And if Russia doesn’t come back into compliance, then we have to be prepared for a world without the INF Treaty and with more Russian missiles violating the Treaty”, he added. Thus, he warned that “this is therefore something which is of great concern and it undermines a cornerstone of European security, the INF Treaty”.
According to Mr Stoltenberg, these “hard-to-detect and mobile” missiles can carry nuclear warheads and can reach European cities.
For her part, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said that Europeans continue to “hope that there is a way to preserve [the treaty] and fully implement it”. “And the two things should go hand in hand”, she said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)