Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that any possible missile deployment by the United States in Europe and Asia would be counterproductive and harmful.
The Russian foreign minister's warning came after General Martin Dempsey said in statements that the U.S. might deploy its cruise and ballistic missiles in Europe and Asia targeting Russian territory, the country's TASS news agency reported.
"We hear these statements and we study them, and here it is very important to understand what he meant in particular as sometimes these statements are taken out of context," Lavrov said.
"In principle, we believe it is absolutely counterproductive and harmful to build up militarist rhetoric, moreover that all our partners say unanimously that they do not want the return of the Cold War time. If this is so in fact, then one should be probably more careful when saying," Lavrov added.
Lavrov urged the United States to discuss Russia each other's concerns, according to TASS news agency. "We are open for an honest, but specific, not unsubstantiated dialogue in order to remove any concerns," Lavrov said.
Russia also rejected U.S. accusations that Russia had violated the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty, the Associated Press reported. Instead, Russia's defence ministry claimed that the U.S. has fueled the controversy over allegations of INF violations in an attempt to cover cup its own plans to deploy missiles in Europe and Asia.
"Apparently, the US is ramping up the issue of 'Russian violations' to justify their own ostensibly responsive military action that would be aims at ensuring American 'leadership' in confrontation with the mythical 'Russian military threat' that Washington drums up regardless of all facts to the contrary," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said in a statement, according to Russia Today.
The INF Treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, aims to eliminate nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles of intermediate ranges.
