Foreign Desk Report
BRUSSELS: NATO envoys will discuss the future of the Open Skies treaty on Friday after the United States announced it would quit the 35-nation pact that allows unarmed surveillance flights over member countries, an official of the defence alliance said.
Russia says U.S. withdrawal from Open Skies treaty undermines international security. France says regrets U.S. decision to withdraw from Open Skies treaty
Senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, which says Russia has repeatedly violated the treaty’s terms, said on Thursday that Washington would formally pull out of Open Skies in six months.
The U.S. move deepens doubts about whether Washington will seek to extend the 2010 New START accord, which imposes the last remaining limits on U.S. and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear arms to no more than 1,550 each. It expires in February.
U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have pressed Washington not to leave the Open Skies pact, whose unarmed overflights are aimed at bolstering confidence and providing members forewarning of surprise military attacks.
The NATO official recalled concern raised at a 2018 summit of alliance leaders that “Russia’s selective implementation” of Open Skies was undermining their security. “In particular, we are concerned that Russia has restricted flights over certain areas,” the official said. “Allies continue to consult closely on the future of the treaty and the North Atlantic Council will meet today to discuss the issue.”
Russia denied on Friday a U.S. accusation that it had repeatedly violated the Open Skies treaty, which allows unarmed surveillance flights over member countries, and said it was Washington that had flouted the terms of the pact. Washington said on Thursday it would pull out of the 35-nation treaty within six months, the Trump administration’s latest move to withdraw from a major global accord.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Washington had not cited any facts to back up its accusation. He described what he said were U.S. violations of the treaty as “flagrant” and promised to provide detailed evidence of them to other signatory nations.
“We will spend more time having dialogue with these countries to show… with slides, with booklets, why the United States is lying in its claim that Russia is violating the Open Skies treaty, why the U.S. itself is violating this treaty, and what way forward Russia is offering,” Ryabkov said.
The disagreement between the two nuclear powers sours the atmosphere at a time when Washington is considering whether to agree to extend the 2010 New START accord, which imposes the last remaining limits on U.S. and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear arms. The New START treaty expires in February.
Ryabkov said Washington’s proposed withdrawal from the Open Skies treaty mirrored the U.S. decision to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia in August 2019.
