NATO's Stoltenberg calls on Russia to comply with INF nuclear treaty

Reuters
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg attend an international field exercise organized by Ministry of the Interior of Serbia and NATO's Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) in Mladenovac, Serbia, October 8, 2018. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic

OSLO (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of new nuclear-capable missiles in Europe is jeopardizing a key arms control treaty that helped end the Cold War, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference in Norway on Tuesday. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 20 that Washington planned to quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed in 1987, amid what he sees as Russian violations of the agreement. "The problem is the deployment of new Russian missiles. There are no new U.S. missiles in Europe, but there are more Russian missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and those missiles put the INF treaty in jeopardy," Stoltenberg said. "Therefore we call on Russia to ensure that they are in full and transparent compliance with the INF treaty," he added. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, writing by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)