China does not support Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono's suggestion to create a new multilateral structure capable of replacing the US-Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
"As for making the INF multilateral, we have already said that this is a bilateral deal between Russia and the United States. If the agreement becomes multilateral, this will influence a whole range of complex political, military and legal issues," Sputnik cited the diplomat as saying.
"The Chinese side does not give its consent," Hua Chunying stressed.
Kono has said that the world needs a new structure that would unite all the global nuclear powers — Russia, the United States, China, the United Kingdom and France — and replace the INF treaty, in which both the United States and Russia have suspended participation.
