NATO Summit: US to deploy weapons in Germany; concerns raised over Russia-North Korea ties

The United States willstartdeployinglong-rangefire capabilities inGermanyin2026in an effort to demonstrate its commitment to NATO and European defence, the United States andGermanysaid in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The United States' "episodic deployments" are in preparation forlonger-term stationing of such capabilities that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonicweaponsthat have alongerrangethan current capabilities in Europe, the two countries said.

Both the Tomahawk and the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) are made by RTX's Raytheon division.

Ground-based missiles with arangeexceeding 500 kilometres were banned until 2019 under the Intermediate-RangeNuclear Forces Treaty signed by the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev and former US President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

It marked the first time the two superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals and eliminated a whole category ofweapons.

Falling in line with the signatories,Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic destroyed their missiles in the 1990s, to be followed later by Slovakia and Bulgaria.

The United States withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019 saying that Moscow was violating the accord, citing Russia's development of the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile, known in NATO as the SSC-8.

The Kremlin repeatedly denied the accusation and then imposed a moratorium on its own development of missiles previously banned by the INF treaty - ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles withranges of 500 km to 5,500 km.

At the end of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow should resume production of intermediate and shorter-rangenuclear-capable missiles after the United States brought similar missiles to Europe and Asia.

Putin said Russia had pledged not to deploy such missiles but that the United States had resumed their production, brought them to Denmark for exercises and also taken them to the Philippines.

Leaders of South Korea, Japan share concerns

SouthKorean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shared concerns over growing ties between Russia and NorthKoreaand agreed to continue their security cooperation, a statement from Yoon's office said on Thursday.

The twoleaders, who are attending the NATO summit for the third consecutive year, met on the sidelines of the event in Washington on Wednesday.

Military and economic cooperation between Russia and NorthKoreais a security concern for East Asia but also globally, Yoon was quoted as saying by his office.

Yoon also added Pyongyang and Moscow's growing ties underscore the significance of a trilateral summit at Camp David with US President Joe Biden and Japan's Kishida last year where they agreeed to deepen military and economic cooperation.

Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has sought to mend ties with Tokyo which have been challenged by historical disputes stemming from Japan's 1910-1945 occupation ofKorea.

In a recent interview with Reuters, Yoon warned Russia over its deepening military ties with NorthKorea.

Seoul and Washington have accused NorthKoreaof supplying artillery and ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine, which both Moscow and Pyongyang deny.

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