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By Jia Cheng Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would be forced to deploy nuclear weapons if the US fails to ratify the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that was signed by Russia and the US in April. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US believes Russia has ramped up plans to deploy short-range tactical nuclear missiles, an accusation denied by Nikolai Makarov, the chief of Russia's Armed Forces General Staff. "That's not our choice. We don't want that to happen. But this is not a threat on our part," Putin told CNN in an interview aired Wednesday. "We've been simply saying that this is what all of us expect to happen if we cannot agree on a joint effort." It would take "a very dumb nature" for the US to ignore its own interests, Putin added. Replacing the previous pact, the new START would aim to reduce the two countries' deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 apiece, and allow experts to do on-site inspections. In his weekly address on November 20, US President Barack Obama said that the two nations, possessing 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, have a responsibility to work together to reduce arsenals. "A failure to ratify the new START would be a dangerous gamble with US national security, setting back our understanding of Russia's nuclear weapons, as well as our leadership in the world. That is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do," he added. "This is yet another diplomatic battle between the US and Russia. Putin is obviously trying to put pressure on the US government," Gu Guoliang, director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Studies at the Chinese Acad-emy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. "Sooner or latter, the US Congress will eventually ratify the new treaty, because the new START is in line with the basic interests of both countries and their diplomatic developments," he added. Agencies contributed to this story |
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