Russia supports making the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty a multilateral agreement to include not only China, but also NATO states, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said.
"Russia has been and is in favor of making this treaty multilateral. To ensure that not only the People's Republic of China would enter it, but that all NATO states and, primarily, France and the United Kingdom, should be part of it," Sputnik cited the diplomat as saying.
He stressed that the idea to make the INF Treaty multilateral is not new, but some 10 years old.
"It was Russia's initiative when we proposed to make the treaty multilateral. Then, we first addressed it to the countries of NATO and, of course, to France and the UK. These are nuclear states. We said that it would be great if they joined this conversation. However, back then we were told that no one had such missiles and that they would not need to join. We were refused. Unfortunately, our efforts did not succeed and we could not make it multilateral," the envoy explained.
Antonov added that the U.S. has still not given notice to Moscow about its intentions to leave the INF Treaty.
