U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced the formal withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty (OST) in six months. The US administration said that Russia had repeatedly violated the pact’s terms. However, the French Foreign Ministry said in a joint statement with Germany, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Sweden, that the treaty remained “functional and useful”.
- Open Skies Treaty (OST) is an agreement that allows countries to monitor signatories’ arms development by conducting unarmed surveillance flights over each other’s territories.
- The idea behind the Open Skies Treaty (OST), first proposed in the early years of the Cold War by former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, was signed in 1992 in Helsinki, during the George H.W. Bush presidency.
- The treaty came into effect in 2002 under the George W. Bush administration and it allows its 34 signatories to conduct unarmed reconnaissance flights over the territory of treaty countries.
- Currently 34 states are party to the treaty while a 35th, Kyrgyzstan, has signed but not ratified it. India is not part of this treaty.
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