UN vote on INF Treaty was revealing

Editor's note: The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that international security and stability will be further undermined after a draft resolution in support of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was rejected in a United Nations vote. Xiakedao, a WeChat account owned by People's Daily, comments:

As expected, the draft resolution has not been adopted, as among the 187 members eligible to cast a vote, 43 supported it, 46 vetoed it, and 78 abstained from voting.

The large number of abstentions is no surprise as these are countries that have no desire to be dragged into the tussle between Russia and the United States. Despite these concerns Moscow still marshaled 43 votes in support, which also shows the international community's concern over a step backward for nuclear weapons control and disarmament efforts.

An important reason that the US threatens to withdraw from the two-party treaty is that Washington wants to apply the treaty to more countries owning intermediate range missiles, such as China, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

China's medium-range missiles cannot threaten the US, and are only for self-defense. But still the US sees the missiles as thorns in its flesh, as they could target its warships' "free navigation" in the South China Sea if required.

It is no surprise to see that Canada, Ukraine and all the European Union members stood behind the US in the vote. But it is beyond expectations that Turkey was among Washington's supporters, as Turkey-Russia relations are not so bad these days.

However, Turkey is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and it is politically correct to support the leader of NATO. Also, Turkey is within the range of the banned missiles.

And according to the acts of the current administration of the US, it will not be a surprise to see Washington collecting a protection fee from the EU once an intermediate-range nuclear missiles arms race is ignited.