John Bolton, the US national security adviser, has met with Russian President Vladimir Putinin Moscow.
Speaking at a news conference after the talks on Tuesday, Bolton said Washington wanted to withdraw from a key nuclear weapons control treaty with Russia since it was confident Moscow had violated it.
He also said that the danger to Europe was not the prospective US pull out from the 31-year-oldIntermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty but “the threat is the Russian missiles already deployed”.
Bolton also pointed at China’s massive intermediate-range capability as another key concern.
“The treaty was outmoded and being violated by other countries,” he said. “Under that view, exactly one country was restrained by the INF – the United States.”
On his part, Putin said Russia was sometimes surprised by what he said were unprovoked actions taken by the United States against Moscow.
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