'Russia to start talks on CFE treaty with NATO'

Moscow, Apr 27: A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to walk out of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), a top Russian military official today said Moscow will discuss the start of talks on the future of the treaty during a Russia-NATO Council meeting in Brussels on May 10.

"I will be in Brussels on May 10 and we are ready to start negotiations to explain the position of our President on the CFE treaty to our NATO colleagues," Chief of the General Staff, Army General Yury Baluyevsky said at a press conference.

President Putin, in his annual state-of-the-nation address yesterday, proposed to unilaterally impose a moratorium on the implementation of the CFE treaty until other signatories to the treaty ratifed it.

"I think it is necessary to announce a moratorium on Russia's implementation of the CFE treaty until all NATO countries ratify it and start to strictly adhere to it, as Russia does today unilaterally," Mr Putin said.

The CFE was concluded in 1990 by the then-22 NATO members and the now defunct Warsaw Pact to enhance arms control in Europe, and amended in 1999 to take post-Cold War realities into account.

NATO countries have not ratified the new version, demanding Russia to first withdraw Soviet-era bases from Georgia and Moldova under the Istanbul Agreements.

Russia has clarified that there was no link between the two the documents, and argued that NATO newcomers Slovakia and the three Baltic states had not joined the CFE at all, despite preliminary agreements.

Mr Putin also warned that Russia might consider leaving the CFE treaty, if talks with NATO countries made no tangible progress in the implementation of the treaty in the future.

A Kremlin source later confirmed the Kremlin's determination to follow up on Mr Putin's proposal, giving the alliance a year to make a decision on the CFE or face Russia's unilateral withdrawal from the treaty.

"We have approached our NATO partners on the issue on numerous occasions, but they have never made any progress toward ratification of the treaty," the source said adding "They must decide on the future of the treaty in a short time - within a year."

UNI