Trump says Nancy Pelosi has 'no clue' after she trashes his move to pull out of nuclear missile treaty for creating a potential arms race with Russia
- Trump said Pelosi doesn't have 'a clue'
- The speaker said his treaty withdrawal risks 'undermining international security'
- Pelosi warned it could force a 'dangerous arms competition'
- Secretary of State Pompeo announced the U.S. would formally pull out Saturday
- U.S. arms controls officials held last-ditch talks in Moscow Thursday on the 1987 signed Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF
- Treaty was signed by Reagan and Gorbachev and led to both Soviet and U.S. land-based mid-range nuclear missiles being banned
- Both countries could continue to have long-range and short-range missiles, and air and sea-launched weapons systems under the treaty
- Treaty was seen as key part in ending Cold War tension but the Trump administration says Putin is violating it with his new Novatar 9M729 missile
- Russians say the U.S. is looking for a pretext to leave the treaty; move will let U.S. develop new weapons systems and potentially station them in Europe
President Donald Trump ridiculed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after she issued a statement denouncing his move to withdraw from a nuclear missile treaty over Russia's non-compliance.
Pelosi came out with a strong statement blasting Trump's move hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. would move Saturday to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
'Honestly, I don't think she has a clue. I don't think Nancy has a clue,' Trump said when asked about it.' Then he immediately connected their dispute to their extended clash over a border wall.
'I see that when she says walls are immoral,' Trump said. 'She doesn't know, and I wish she did.'
Pelosi, who has assumed the mantle of Democratic leadership although her chamber has no role in approval of treaties, blasted the president's move on the INF.
'I don't think Nancy has a clue,' said President Donald Trump, tearing into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she criticized his move to withdraw from a nuclear missile treaty over Russian non-compliance
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'The Trump Administration is risking an arms race and undermining international security and stability,' she said.
'Russia's brazen noncompliance with this treaty is deeply concerning, but discarding a key pillar of our nonproliferation security framework creates unacceptable risks,' Pelosi continued. 'The Administration should exhaust every diplomatic effort and work closely with NATO allies over the next six months to avoid thrusting the United States into a dangerous arms competition.'
'We must be strong, smart and strategic to keep America safe,' she concluded.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the U.S. will no longer comply with a landmark nuclear treaty with Russia, beginning as soon as Saturday.
Pompeo says the U.S. will suspend its obligations to the treaty on Saturday.
If Russia doesn't come into compliance, the treaty 'will terminate,' he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted Trump's decision to pull out of a nuclear treaty
Speaking at the State Department Friday, Pompeo said: 'For years Russia has violated the terms of the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty without remorse.
'Russia has refused to take any steps to return real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days. The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF treaty effective February 2nd.'
In a statement issued on Friday, Trump suggested ties could improve markedly if Russia were willing to compromise on arms control, saying all sides must live up to such agreements.
'We stand ready to engage with Russia on arms control negotiations ... and, importantly, once that is done, develop, perhaps for the first time ever, an outstanding relationship on economic, trade, political, and military levels,' he said.
The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as INF, bans the U.S. and Russia from having ground-launched missiles with ranges from 315 miles to 3,415 miles.
The move could lead to the U.S. developing new nuclear weapons of the type which were stationed in Europe in the 1980s to huge public controversy - and potentially stationing them on the continent again.
A senior official cited prior U.S. efforts to negotiate with Russia. 'We have had a series of discussions at the highest levels,' the official said.
'There was even an effort to arrange at highest level, President Putin and President Trump, that President Trump made the decision to cancel because of Russia's absolutely unlawful and flagrant violation of international law with respect to the of seizing 24 Ukrainian sailors,' the official said, referencing the cancelled formal meeting in Buenos Aires.
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'The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF treaty effective February 2nd,' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday morning
Stumbling block: The Russian Novatar 9M729 ground-based cruise missile system is accused by the U.S. of breaching the INF treaty which Russia denies. The U.S. now says it will pull out of the treaty as soon as this weekend after talks to resolve the standoff failed
Pompeo said the U.S. had fully adhered to the treaty for three decades. 'But we will not remain constrained by its terms while Russia misrepresents its actions. We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other,' the nation's top diplomat added.
Administration officials say the U.S. has made 35 diplomatic engagements with Russia to try to get it to come into compliance with the treaty. In theory it could come back into compliance during the review period, but U.S. officials are not predicting it will.
'Russia will have this chance if they are truly interested in preserving the treaty, this is their final chance,' a senior administration official said during a briefing call with reporters Friday.
'They know what they do. They know what they're doing is a violation,' said a senior administration official, dismissing Russia's denials.
The U.S. side called off that formal meeting in protest of Russia's firing on Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Straight incident.
However, it was revealed this week that Trump and Putin did meet privately in Buenos Aires, speaking for up to 15 minutes, the Financial Times reported, citing a Russian government official. However the report did not state that they spoke about the missile treaty.
A few hours before Pompeo's announcement, the NATO Western security alliance issued a statement saying it would 'fully support' the U.S. withdrawal notice.
Speaking before Pompeo's announcement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized the importance of using the six months window to keep talking.
In the U.S. senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused Trump failing to grasp the importance of arms control treaties or of having a wider strategy to control the spread of nuclear weapons.
'Today´s withdrawal is yet another geo-strategic gift to Vladimir Putin,' he said.
In Russia there was no immediate official response form the Kremin.
'America really wants to develop new weapons systems which are in breach of this treaty,' Konstantin Kosachyov, senior Russian lawmaker, wrote on social media, saying the alleged Russian violation of the treaty had been a convenient pretext.
The Trump administration had forecast its withdrawal from the 1987 pact, citing concerns that Russia wasn't honoring it and that it didn't include China, which has engaged in its own missile program.
The move is to be communicated to Russia and former states that made up the Soviet Union on Saturday.
The formal move kicks in a 60-day period, which will be followed by a six-month period to withdraw from the landmark Cold War agreement.
Leaving the treaty would allow the U.S. to develop longer-range conventional land-based missiles than it currently has - but which China is currently developing because it was not part of the banning treaty.
The treaty was signed in 1987 as a breakthrough in reducing nuclear tensions.
It banned the U.S. and the then Soviet Union from having any medium-range ground-based missiles, whether nuclear or conventional, which led to the U.S. getting rid of its nuclear land-based cruise and Pershing II missiles - although it left long-range missiles intact.
The treaty banned such ground-based weapons with a range of 310 to 3,400 miles
Public protests greeted the medium-range missiles being stationed in Europe and the Soviets saw them as an escalation of Cold War tensions.
Pioneering moment: The INF was signed in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan and banned ground-based cruise missiles with ranges from 315 miles to
An administration official said President Donald Trump (C) was to have met with with Russia's President Vladimir Putin about the missile treaty, although the formal meeting was called off over Russia's actiosn in the Kerch Straight incident. Here Trump and Putin stand next to US First Lady Melania Trump (L) ahead a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018
Russia claims it is not in breach of the agreement.
The pact has stood since then but in 2017 the U.S. accused Russia of flouting the pact by developing and deploying a new nuclear missile with a range of 1,500 miles.
Russia denies that its Novator 9M729 is in breach of the treaty and claims that its range is within the pact's limits at 300 miles, but the U.S. says that it has been test fired over the far longer range.
Russia accuses the U.S. of using the claims as a pretext to get out of the treaty and rejected demands to destroy its missile system.
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson on Thursday held last-ditch talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Beijing ahead of the expiration of a U.S. 60-day deadline for Moscow to come back into compliance with the treaty.
The deadline expires on Saturday February 2.
Thompson and Ryabkov, who met on the sidelines of a 'P5' meeting of nuclear powers - the U.S, Russia, China, France and the UK - said afterwards that the two countries had failed to bridge their differences.
In an interview, Thompson said she expected Washington to now stop complying with the treaty as soon as this weekend, a move she said would allow the U.S. military to immediately begin developing its own longer-range missiles if it chose to do so, raising the prospect they could be deployed in Europe.
'We´ll be able to do that (suspend our treaty obligations) on Feb. 2,' Thompson told Reuters.
'We'll have an announcement made, follow all the steps that need to be taken on the treaty to suspend our obligations with the intent to withdraw.'
The formal withdrawal process, once announced, takes six months. Stopping compliance with the treaty would untie the U.S. military's hands, she said.
'We are then also able to conduct the R&D and work on the systems we haven't been able to use because we've been in compliance with the treaty,' said Thompson.
'Come February 2, this weekend, if DoD (the U.S. Department of Defense) chooses to do that, they´ll be able to do that.'
Washington remained open to further talks with Moscow about the treaty regardless, she added.
Nuclear weapons experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in a statement this week that while Russia's violation of the INF treaty is a serious problem, U.S. withdrawal under current circumstances would be counterproductive.
'Leaving the INF treaty will unleash a new missile competition between the United States and Russia,' they said.
Kingston Reif, director for disarmament at the Arms Control Association, said Thursday the Trump administration has failed to exhaust diplomatic options to save the treaty. What's more, 'it has no strategy to prevent Russia from building and fielding even more intermediate-range missiles in the absence of the agreement.'
Reif said the period between now and August, when the U.S. withdrawal would take effect, offers a last chance to save the treaty, but he sees little prospect of that happening. He argues that John Bolton, the national security adviser to President Donald Trump, is 'unlikely to miss the opportunity to kill an agreement he has long despised.'
Ryabkov said Moscow would continue working to try to reach agreement despite the failure of the talks, but accused Washington of ignoring Russian complaints about U.S. missiles and of adopting what he called a destructive position.
'Unfortunately, there is no progress,' Rybakov said.
Ryabkov called the US position 'rather tough, ultimatum-like' and 'destructive,' state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
'We have not made any progress. We state this not just with sorrow, but with deep concern for the fate of the treaty, for the fate of European and international security,' Ryabkov said.
During the conference with the other Security Council nations in Beijing, Ryabkov said bilateral dialogue was stalling on certain topics as one party was 'intentionally' refusing to pursue discussions - a thinly veiled reference to the United States.
At odds: Putin's forces are accused by Trump's administration of having a missile system which breaches the INF. Russia says it is a pretext for the U.S. quitting the treaty
'Russia can't be blamed for anything. We are always ready for dialogue on all topics, including the most difficult current issues, and to be fully transparent. We expect our partners to take the same approach,' he said.
Last week the Russian military displayed the nuclear-capable 9M729 missile system to the media and foreign military officials in an attempt to prove the weapon does not violate the treaty.
Russia says the missile's maximum range is 480 kilometers (300 miles) and within the allowed range.
Washington has however said a static display of the cruise missile does not prove its range does not breach the agreement.
It ended a dangerous build-up of warheads in Europe but there are fears a similar situation could re-emerge.
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. had as many as 7,000 warheads deployed in Europe.
However the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington D.C. based think tank, now estimates that there are far fewer - 150 nuclear warheads, all of them on air-dropped unguided bombs.
They are held in Belgium, Germany, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands, the NTI reported.
The INF did not ban long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. The U.S. has an arsenal of Minuteman missiles ready to launch from missile silos in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.
But Russian concerns center on the possibility of the U.S. using bases in Poland to deploy short- to medium-range nuclear missiles.
Poland has both asked the U.S. for a permanent presence, and allowed the U.S. to build a ground-based missile defense shield using Aegis technology.
BreakingDefense.com reported that the Russians have claimed that the Aegis firing mechanism is essentially the same as the one used to launch Tomahawk conventional missiles from shops, and could be adapted to be turned into an offensive rather than defensive system.
Russia itself has deployed short-range nuclear-capable rockets on its border with Poland in Kaliningrad. Their range of under 300 miles makes them compatible with the INF.
The other source of U.S. concern over the treaty has been that it allowed China to develop the missile systems.
Astonishing moment Russian jet 'pushes' US F-15 by banking across it 'during NATO patrol over Baltic Sea'
- Russian fighter aggressively forced US-made plane to divert from its flight path
- The Su-27 cut across the F-15 from the side during the dangerous manoeuvre
- Pentagon said Russian jet had come close to colliding with one of its fighters over Black Sea on Monday - but it's not known if the two incidents are related
A Russian fighter jet has been filmed forcing a US F-15 to turn away and change course by flying dangerously close to the American aircraft.
In footage circulating on Russian social media, the Su-27 fighter comes into frame and makes a sharp left to bank across the F-15 from the side.
The US-made plane has no choice but to move out of the way as the Russian jet came within feet of hitting it.
The Pentagon said that a Russian jet came dangerously close to one of its fighters over the Black Sea on Monday.
The Su-27 fighter comes into frame and makes a sharp left to cut in on the F-15 from the side
The US-made plane has no choice but to move out of the way as the Russian jet came within feet of hitting it
It said the Russian aircraft intercepted a US Navy patrol plane in international airspace, coming within five feet of the American plane, according to CBS.
Pentagon spokeswoman Captain Pamela Kunze said the Russian plane flew close to the plane for two hours and 40 minutes before crossing directly into its flight path.
It's not known if it was the same incident shown in the footage, or just the latest in a series of close calls between Russian and U.S. aircraft over the Black Sea.
The American-made plane (left) was reportedly patrolling the Baltic Sea when the Russian fighter (in blue, right) appeared from nowhere and performed the dangerous manoeuvre
The 40-second clip was uploaded to Twitter on Thursday but it's not known where the altercation took place.
Commenters on social media claimed the manoeuvre was executed over the Baltic Sea as a part of a Baltic Air-policing mission.
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