US President Trump was reported last month to be on the verge of pulling his country out of the Open Skies Treaty, which was signed in 1992 and went into effect a decade later.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a letter dated 18 October that the pact was "one of the last working trust-building mechanisms between Europe and Russia", the Sueddeutsche newspaper reported.
Russia and the United States have repeatedly accused each other of violating the Opens Skies Treaty but — country to the fate of the INF missile pact— no irregularity would justify its cancellation, the German government argued.
Earlier, head of Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Centre, Sergei Ryzhkov, announced that Russia would carry out this week observation flights under the treaty in Germany and in Italy as well.
According to the official, the observation flight over Italy will be carried out using the Russian Antonov An-30B aircraft. An observation flight over Germany will be carried out on the Russian Tupolev Tu-154m aircraft. The maximum range of the flight over Germany will be 1,300 kilometers (about 808 miles).
