MOSCOW/WASHINGTON:
Russia and China warned yesterday that a new US missile test had heightened
military tensions and risked sparking an arms race, weeks after Washington
ripped up a Cold War-era weapons pact with Moscow. The US and Russia ditched
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty this month after accusing
each other of violating the accord. Washington said the agreement also tied its
hands in dealing with other powers such as China.

The US Department
of Defense announced on Monday it had tested a type of ground-launched missile
that was banned under the 1987 INF agreement, which limited the use of nuclear
and conventional medium-range weapons. "The US has obviously taken a
course towards escalation of military tensions. We won't react to
provocations," Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told state
news agency TASS. "We will not allow ourselves to get drawn into a costly
arms race." Ryabkov said the test showed Washington had been working on
such missiles long before its official withdrawal from the deal.

In Beijing,
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: "This measure from
the US will trigger a new round of an arms race, leading to an escalation of
military confrontation." He warned that the test "will have a serious
negative impact on the international and regional security situation". The
US should "let go of its Cold War mentality" and "do more things
that are conducive to... international and regional peace and
tranquillity", Geng added.

The missile was
launched from the US Navy-controlled San Nicolas Island off the coast of
California. Speaking in France Monday before news of the US test launch broke,
President Vladimir Putin said Russia would only deploy medium- or shorter-range
missiles in response to similar moves by the US. "If the United States
produces such offensive systems, we will also do so," Putin said at a
press conference before meetings with French leader Emmanuel Macron. Moscow and
Washington have long criticized the treaty but Putin said it was the US that
made the decision to "unilaterally" withdraw.

The missile
tested on Sunday was a version of the nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile.
The ground-launched version of the Tomahawk was removed from service after the
INF was ratified. Earlier this month Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said the
US had already begun work to develop "mobile, conventional,
ground-launched cruise and ballistic missile systems". "Now that we
have withdrawn, the Department of Defense will fully pursue the development of
these ground-launched conventional missiles as a prudent response to Russia's
actions," Esper said.

But he also
insisted the US was not embarking on a new arms race. "The traditional
sense of an arms race has been in a nuclear context," he said. "Right
now, we don't have plans to build nuclear-tipped INF-range weapons. It's the
Russians who have developed non-compliant likely, possibly nuclear-tipped
weapons."

The US launch
came weeks after a deadly explosion at a Russian testing site, which Western
experts linked to Moscow's attempts to develop a nuclear-powered missile. The
blast killed five scientists and caused a spike in radiation levels, although
Russian authorities have remained tightlipped on the nature of the explosion.
US experts have said it could be linked to testing of the
"Burevestnik" cruise missile, touted by Putin earlier this year. The
INF banned all land-based missiles that could travel between 500 and 5,500 km
in an effort to abolish the class of nuclear arms that then most threatened
Europe. - AFP