Trump threatens to pull out of Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty

President Donald Trump has announced that the US will pull out of a landmark Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty with Russia that limited the number of ground-launched medium-range missiles in their arsenals, accusing Moscow of "violating" the deal for many years.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty was one of those agreements and is set to expire in the next two years. The 1987 pact helps protect the security of the US and its allies in Europe and the Far East.

It prohibits the US and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. It also covers all land-based missiles, including those carrying nuclear warheads.

"We're going to terminate the agreement and we're going to pull out," Trump told reporters Saturday in Nevada when asked about the reports that his National Security Advisor John Bolton wants the US to pull out of the three-decade-old treaty.

The INF treaty was signed between the then US president Ronald Reagan and his USSR counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles.

The Pentagon has been supportive of the INF treaty but Defence Secretary James Mattis warned other NATO ministers earlier this month it would no longer be tenable if Russia did not withdraw its Novator ground-based missile, which the US has argued for nearly four years violates the INF range restrictions.

"We are going to terminate the agreement and then we are going to develop the weapons," unless Russia and China agree to a new deal, the US president said.

"Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years," Trump said.

He asserted that the US is "not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we're not allowed to”.

"We'll have to develop those weapons...they (Russia and China) all come to us and say let's really get smart and lets none of us develops those weapons, but if Russia is doing it and if China is doing it, and we are adhering to the agreement, that is unacceptable," Trump asserted.

He said the US will not adhere to the agreement unless others were violating it.

Trump alleged that his predecessor Barack Obama had kept quiet on this. “I don't know why President Obama didn't negotiate or pull out. And we're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we're not allowed to," he said.

"We are the ones that have stayed in the agreement and we have honoured the agreement. If they get smart and if others get smart and they say let's not develop these horrible nuclear weapons, I would be extremely happy with that, but as long as somebody is violating the agreement, we are not going to be the only ones to adhere to it," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Russia's Deputy Foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said the US' withdrawal from the treaty would be a dangerous step.

"This would be a very dangerous step that, I'm sure, not only will not be comprehended by the international community but will provoke serious condemnation," Ryabkov told TASS state news agency.

(With inputs from agencies.)