Washington, December 7 (RHC)-- A group of U.S. senators have written an open letter to President Donald Trump urging not to withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a Cold War-era nuclear weapons agreement with Russia.

Senators Bob Menendez, Jack Reed and Mark Warner said that such a step "feeds a narrative that the United States is willing to shred our commitments unilaterally without any strategic alternative."

Trump said last month that he was planning to abandon the INF, a key arms control treaty that has been in place since 1986, over claims that Moscow violated it.

The decision drew criticism from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who signed the original document with Ronald Reagan, his American counterpart at the time.  Condemning the move as a mistake, Gorbachev said it demonstrated Trump's "lack of wisdom."

Gorbachev said Trump was undermining all the past efforts made between the two countries to fulfill nuclear disarmament.

Moscow has threatened to respond in kind and act to restore the balance of military power should Washington choose to exit the agreement.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned that the new U.S. strategy showed that the country was "seriously considering the concept of a limited nuclear war."