WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The INF, signed by the United States and the then Soviet Union in 1987, bans nuclear and conventional ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles).
"Development of a new treaty-prohibited GLCM is militarily unnecessary, would suck funding from other military programs for which there are already requirements, divide NATO, and give Russia an easy excuse to publicly repudiate the [INF] treaty and deploy large numbers of non-compliant missiles without any constraints," the ACA said on Monday.
Pentagon officials are concerned that other nations not bound by the 1987 treaty are pulling ahead of the US in GLCM technology. Both China and Iran field GCLMs; China's is known as the DF-10A, Iran's is the Soumar.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied allegations of INF treaty violations earlier this year and said Russia remains committed to the accord. The Russian Foreign Ministry last April said that the deployment of US missile defense systems in Romania and Poland is prohibited under the INF treaty.
