The United States is formally abandoning a landmark Cold War arms control treaty. The demise of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, which US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago, has raised fears of a new arms race.
The US said that for years Russia had been developing weapons that violated the treaty and threatened the US and its allies, particularly in Europe. The US has also complained that China, which was not a signatory, was developing similar weapons without the constraints of a treaty.