NATO chief to meet Russia's Lavrov on missile pact crisis

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced Wednesday that he will hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week, as part of efforts to save a key arms control treaty that is on the point of collapse. The pair will meet at the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday, as NATO tries to persuade Moscow to abandon a new missile system the alliance says breaches the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The US began the process of exiting the treaty earlier this month in response to Moscow's deployment of the 9M729 missile, prompting Russia to announce its own withdrawal.