The US Air Force has reportedly decided to retire two Boeing OC-135B surveillance aircraft used to fly over Russian territory in accordance with the Open Skies Treaty, with the planes to be scrapped at an aircraft junkyard, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Congressman Don Bacon, a retired Air Force commander who oversaw the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska where the planes are ordinarily based, said the decision to scrap the nearly 60-year-old planes appears to signal that the Biden administration will not be returning to the treaty, despite Biden’s criticism of Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement last year.

“These aircraft are nearly 60 years old, and it costs too much to operate them,” Bacon said. “Once at the boneyard, they’ll be reused for spare parts and cut for scrap metal.”

A National Security Council spokesperson confirmed that the potential US return to the JCPOA is still under review, with a decision to be made “in due course,” and separately “from previously scheduled activities relating to ageing equipment.”

An Air Force spokesperson said the OC-135Bs would be sent to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base boneyard in Arizona sometime over the next two months.

After announcing plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty last year, the Trump administration said the OC-135Bs would either be scrapped or donated to foreign allies, but reportedly ran out of time before finding anyone interested in taking them.

Asked to comment on the decision to scrap the planes, Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation in Vienna on arms control, told Sputnik that it appears to indicate Washington’s unwillingness to return to the agreement, and said the US has not sent Moscow “any signals” regarding the treaty.