US Not Willing to Withdraw From INF Treaty: Trump’s Special Assistant

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The United States does not want to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), Special Assistant to President Donald Trump, Christopher Ford told Sputnik.

On Saturday, the Politico media outlet reported citing several congressmen that the US presidential administration was considering the proposal of the US Congress to withdraw from the INF Treaty.

“The Politico article really bothered me because it made it sound as if the responsible people in the expert community really think that it will be better if we remained constrained and let the Russians do whatever they want. It strikes me as if that is actually a desirable situation, there is no reason to have treaties in the first place because we just can refuse to do anything while they can go ahead and do whatever they want. That’s not what we want it to be, we want to be in an INF-constrainED world,” said Ford, who is also National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Counterproliferation.

Highlighting the challenge of one side violating the treaty while the other side is constrained by it, Ford stressed that the US hoped that Russia would come back to compliance with the INF Treaty.

“Our concern is that not enough has been done to put them [the Russians] in a place where they are incentivized to return to compliance … At some point we think you need to move beyond wagging the finger at the violator and actually give them reasons to think differently about the course they are on. We are hoping to give Russia reasons to think differently about building INF range ground based systems … and with a bit of luck that will get them to a place where they agree to come back into compliance because we like the agreement,” the assistant said.

According to Ford, “the INF problem raises questions about the future of the arms control enterprise.”

Source: Sputnik