The White House has initiated a move to withdraw from a 1992 treaty designed to reduce the risk of war between Western countries and Russia by allowing countries to perform reconnaissance flights over each other’s territories to reassure that an attack is not being prepared, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Senior U.S. officials were slated Thursday to issue a notice to allied countries that it would withdraw from the Open Skies treaty in six months.
“Russia didn’t adhere to the treaty. So until they adhere, we will pull out,” President Trump told reporters Thursday. “But there’s a very good chance we’ll make a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together.”
There are more than 30 state parties to the Open Skies accord, which took effect in 2002. The decision came a year after the Trump administration moved to leave the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
