MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. Washington will obviously not respond to the moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles (INF) proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
"They have not responded yet and it is already clear that they will not respond to our proposal to make two parallel, unrelated moratoriums in the absence of the [INF] treaty" Lavrov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that the United States had made a mistake by unilaterally shattering the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, also known as the INF Treaty, in 2019.
He stated that any future deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the US and its satellites.
The former Soviet Union and the United States signed the INF Treaty in December 1987. It banned the deployment of missile launchers, ground-based ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
However, the US withdrew from the treaty in 2019. Moscow pledged not to manufacture or deploy such missiles as long as Washington refrained from deploying them in any part of the world.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier in the year that Moscow remained committed to the INF moratorium.