BRUSSELS: The EU’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini said Tuesday she was “extremely worried” about the fate of a major US-Russia nuclear missile control treaty, warning the security of Europe could be at risk.
Last month, Washington announced it was pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) over Russia’s deployment of a missile system that Western powers say breaches the 1987 accord.
The Kremlin has fired off warnings of a new arms race, and as she convened a meeting of EU defense ministers Mogherini expressed concern, calling for talks to maintain the agreement.
“If we go toward the dismantling of this agreement, Europe’s security is to be put at risk and we do not want to see European territory go back to being a battlefield for other powers as it has been for so long in the past,” she told reporters.
“We don’t want to go back to those kind of tensions, to that kind of situation and we still hope there is a space for saving the agreement and implementing it,” she said.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration has signalled it will withdraw from the treaty, it has not taken steps to put the decision into practice.
The INF treaty, signed by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ended a nuclear build-up in Europe triggered by Moscow’s deployment of SS-20 missiles targeting Western European capitals.
The US and NATO say Russia’s 9M729 missile system, also known by the designation SSC-8, breaches the treaty, which prohibits ground-launched missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
Washington says repeated attempts to persuade Russia to come back into compliance since 2013 have been met with silence or obfuscation.
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the INF treaty during a brief conversation at World War I centenary events in Paris last week.
EU ‘extremely worried’ about fate of nuclear treaty
EU ‘extremely worried’ about fate of nuclear treaty
- Last month, Washington announced it was pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
- The treaty ended a nuclear build-up in Europe triggered by Moscow’s deployment of SS-20 missiles targeting Western European capitals
Two killed in suicide attack targeting security forces in Pakistan’s northwest
ISLAMABAD: Two security personnel, including an officer, were killed, while multiple others sustained injuries when a suicide blast targeted their vehicle in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, a police official said.
The suicide bomber hit his explosive-laden motorbike into an armored vehicle of security forces in Sara Darga area of KP’s Bannu district, according to a local police official who requested anonymity.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), have carried out similar assaults in the region in past.
“The attack had damaged the armored vehicle, causing deaths and injuries,” he told Arab News, adding that they suspected the Pakistani Taliban to be behind the attack.
Pakistan has struggled to contain a surge in militancy in KP, which borders Afghanistan, in recent years, with militant groups, particularly the TTP, frequently targeting security forces, law enforcers and government officials in the region.
Earlier this week, Pakistani Taliban militants rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a checkpoint jointly manned by security forces and law enforcement agencies in KP’s Bajaur district, killing 11 security personnel among 12 people, the Pakistani military’s media wing said.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of allowing the use of its soil and India of backing militant groups for cross-border attacks against Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi deny this.
