NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gives a news conference on the day the United States is set to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF), in Brussels, Belgium, August 2, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Walschaerts

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Russian request to declare a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe was not credible because Moscow had already deployed such warheads, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday.

“This is not a credible offer because Russia has deployed missiles for years. There is zero credibility in offering a moratorium on missiles they are already deploying,” Stoltenberg told a news conference.

“There are no new U.S. missiles, no new NATO missiles in Europe, but there are more and more new Russian missiles.”