US President Donald Trump announced exits of Open Skies Treaty

US President Donald Trump has announced that he was withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty

Washington: US President Donald Trump has announced that he was withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, a multilateral agreement to guarantee transparency regarding weapons control, and accused Russia of breaching the pact but also at the same time offering to negotiate a new accord with Moscow. Trump's announcement weakens the infrastructure created at the end of the Cold War to control the weaponry of the world's two major nuclear powers after Washington also withdrew last year from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Moscow, reports Efe news. "Russia didn't adhere to the treaty. Until they adhere we will pull out," Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

The Treaty on Open Skies, the implementarion of which is monitored by the Vienna-based Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, has been in force since 2002 and allows its 34 signatory nations to fly over any part of one another's territory, photographing from the air, with the aim of ensuring that other countries or rivals were not preparing military attacks. The US has said that Russia has prevented air surveillance of its military exercises and does not allow flights over regions where it is believed that Moscow has nuclear weapons that could reach Europe or near the separatist regions in the country of Georgia, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Trump was particularly incensed that a Russian aircraft flew directly over his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2017, according to The New York Times. (IANS)

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