‘Golden Dome’ shield could lead to resumption of Russia-US arms control contacts, says Kremlin
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the design for the Golden Dome missile defence shield was a sovereign matter for the United States.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW – The Kremlin indicated on May 21 that US President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile shield plans could force the resumption in the foreseeable future of contacts between Moscow and Washington about nuclear arms control.
Asked about Mr Trump’s announcement that he had selected a design
The so-called Golden Dome, inspired by Israel’s land-based Iron Dome defence shield, is an ambitious project aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia, which the US views as its two biggest geopolitical competitors.
Mr Peskov, asked if Russia saw the project as a threat to its nuclear parity with the US, said there was no detail about the US project and many nuances remained.
“In the foreseeable future, the very course of events requires the resumption of contacts on issues of strategic stability,” Mr Peskov said.
Russia and the US, by far the biggest nuclear powers, have both expressed regret about the disintegration of the tangle of arms control treaties that sought to slow the arms race and reduce the risk of nuclear war.
The US blames Russia for the collapse of agreements such as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The US formally withdrew from the INF treaty in 2019, citing Russian violations, which Moscow denied.
It earlier withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002.
“Now that the legal framework in this area has been destroyed, and the validity period has expired, or deliberately, let’s say, a number of documents have ceased to be valid, this base must be recreated both in the interests of our two countries and in the interests of security throughout the planet,” Mr Peskov said. REUTERS
