Nicholas Soames MP asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, “what reports he has received of violations by Russia of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty since 2014?”
Alan Duncan, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs responded “NATO Allies first expressed concerns about Russian non-compliance with its Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty obligations in 2014. These concerns have been repeated many times, including at the NATO Summit in July 2018. In December 2018, NATO Foreign Ministers offered strong support to the finding of the US that Russia was in material breach of the Treaty, citing its covert testing, production and fielding of 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile systems. The UK monitors Russian missile programmes very carefully. While we cannot go into details on matters of intelligence, we are confident in our assessment that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty. That assessment is shared by all NATO Allies.”
Nicholas Soames MP also asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, “what discussions he has had with the US Administration on their recent decision to suspend the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.”
Alan Duncan, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs responded ”
We have been discussing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the US for a number of years as part of our continuous dialogue on security issues. The US also initiated a series of meetings on INF with close Allies in 2017 and 2018, during which we discussed the US approach and exchanged detailed information on the Russian violation and how we might best achieve our shared policy objectives. We support the US decision to suspend its participation in the INF Treaty and start the treaty’s formal withdrawal process. A situation where the US was respecting INF Treaty and Russia was not, was not sustainable.”