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The United States officially withdrew from the open skies on Sunday, about six months after President Donald Trump announced the decision, according to the US State Department, cited by CNN.
The treaty, concluded in 1992, allows the 34 member states to conduct short-range reconnaissance flights, unarmed, in the airspace of the other signatory countries.
Trump later said that Russia’s actions were what forced him to make this decision. He was referring to Russia’s restrictions on flights near the Kaliningrad enclave, an area between Poland and Lithuania where the Russian military maintains a strong presence.
The United States has also accused Russia of rejecting flights within 10 kilometers of the Georgia-Russia border, as well as a previously approved flight in the area of a major Russian military exercise.
It is one of the main military agreements that the Americans had with Russia, a treaty signed by other NATO member states.
The Open Skies agreement was negotiated by President George HW Bush and his Secretary of State, James Baker, in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since then, the agreement has been signed by 35 countries (including Romania): Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark (including Greenland), Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece , Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary, and entered into force in 2002.
Editing: Monica Bonea
