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UN / US CRUISE MISSILE TEST
STORY: UN / US CRUISE MISSILE TEST
TRT: 02:57
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 22 AUGUST 2019, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
22 AUGUST 2019, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, delegates
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs:
“The recent collapse of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty removed one of the few constraints on the development and deployment of a destabilizing and dangerous classes of missiles. As the Secretary-General rightly noted, this Treaty played an important role in reducing risk, building confidence and helping to bring the Cold War to an end. The INF Treaty’s ending should not be the catalyst for renewed and unconstrained competition in missile development, acquisition and proliferation.”
5. Med shot, US Ambassador
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs:
“Preventing the spread and emergence of destabilizing weapons remains a vital unfinished task for the international community in our shared endeavor to preserve international peace, security and stability.”
7. Wide shot Council
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dmitry Polyanskiy, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations:
“For some time, the treaty was closely implemented by both Russia and the United States. However, it gradually became clearer and clearer that this treaty like other agreements on disarmament and arms control had become uncomfortable for our American partners, who were convinced of their own exclusivity and who were ever more decisively imposing on others a unilateral scheme of international relations.”
9. Med shot, delegates
10. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations:
“We didn’t call this meeting to expose the hypocrisy of our American colleagues. Today, it is obvious to any non-biased disarmament expert that this is an incontrovertible fact, and however much they might harp today in our meeting on the idea that it was the actions of Russia that undermined the INF treaty, the most recent steps taken by Washington are eloquent evidence to the contrary.”
11. Wide shot, Council
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Jonathan Cohen, Deputy Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“We have heard a narrative today that the United States had itself been in violation of the INF Treaty because of our recent flight test which used the MK-41 launcher that is also found in our Aegis Shore Missile Defence System. This is categorically false. The Aegis Shore system does not have an offensive ground-launched ballistic or cruise missile capability. Although it utilizes some of the same structural components as the sea-based MK-41 Vertical Launch System installed on ships, the Aegis Ashore vertical launching system is not the same launcher as the sea-based MK-41 Vertical Launch System. The Aegis Ashore system did not violate our INF Treaty obligations.”
13. Pan left, Council
Addressing a Security Council briefing on the 18 August intermediate-range cruise missile test conducted by the US, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu today (22 Aug) said the recent collapse of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) “removed one of the few constraints on the development and deployment of a destabilizing and dangerous classes of missiles.”
Nakamitsu stressed “the INF Treaty’s ending should not be the catalyst for renewed and unconstrained competition in missile development, acquisition and proliferation.”
The disarmament official said, “preventing the spread and emergence of destabilizing weapons remains a vital unfinished task for the international community in our shared endeavor to preserve international peace, security and stability.”
Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Council that after decades of compliance, “it gradually became clearer and clearer that this treaty like other agreements on disarmament and arms control had become uncomfortable for our American partners, who were convinced of their own exclusivity and who were ever more decisively imposing on others a unilateral scheme of international relations.”
Polyanskiy said, “we didn’t call this meeting to expose the hypocrisy of our American colleagues. Today, it is obvious to any non-biased disarmament expert that this is an incontrovertible fact, and however much they might harp today in our meeting on the idea that it was the actions of Russia that undermined the INF treaty, the most recent steps taken by Washington are eloquent evidence to the contrary.”
For his part, US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen disputed the narrative “that the United States had itself been in violation of the INF Treaty because of our recent flight test which used the MK-41 launcher that is also found in our Aegis Shore Missile Defence System.”
Cohen said this was “categorically false” and explained that the system “does not have an offensive ground-launched ballistic or cruise missile capability.”
He further explained that, “although it utilizes some of the same structural components as the sea-based MK-41 Vertical Launch System installed on ships, the Aegis Ashore vertical launching system is not the same launcher as the sea-based MK-41 Vertical Launch System. The Aegis Ashore system did not violate our INF Treaty obligations.”
The US Department of Defense confirmed on Monday (19 Aug) that it had conducted a flight test of a ground-launched cruise missile which hit its intended target after travelling for more than 500 kilometres. This marks the first time the US has conducted an intermediate-range cruise missile test after formally withdrawing from the INF Treaty on 2 August.
The US and the USSR signed the INF in 1987 and ratified it the following year. The treaty prohibited possessing, development and testing of ground-launched missiles with a range of 500-5,5000 kilometres. By the implementation deadline, June 1991, both countries had eliminated over 2,600 missiles falling under the treaty’s criteria.
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