Translated material
CFE about everything
The Netherlands is preparing an emergency conference at Russia's request
Yesterday, the government of the Netherlands, which is the depositary, that is, the custodian of the original text of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), accepted for execution Russia's request to convene an emergency conference of the states parties to the treaty . The conference is expected to take place in mid-June.The Russian request to convene a conference arrived on Monday, when the Netherlands had a day off - the second day of Trinity. Moscow proposed to meet in Vienna in two weeks. However, the location of the forum is still being determined. What is known is that, in accordance with the principle of rotation, the chairman of the conference will be a representative of Luxembourg.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced his intention to initiate the convening of a conference on May 23 in the Austrian capital. Speaking at a joint meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council and the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation, he explained this initiative by the need to unblock “the situation in the field of arms control in Europe that has become absurd.” The Russian Foreign Ministry spoke in more detail in a special message. The “serious problems that have arisen with the implementation of the treaty by NATO countries as a result of the expansion of the alliance, as well as their delay in the ratification of the Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE Treaty signed in 1999” are cited as “exceptional circumstances” for convening the conference.”
Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again criticized the situation around conventional weapons in Europe . “We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and fill it with new types of weapons,” he said at a press conference following negotiations with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. In turn, speaking yesterday at a meeting of the Government's Military-Industrial Commission at the Kapustin Yar missile range, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov also noted the ineffectiveness of the CFE Treaty: “It does not work - this raises serious concerns. In these conditions, we need to provide our troops with modern and high-precision weapons.”
Let us recall that in 1999, at the OSCE summit in Istanbul, the Agreement on the Adaptation of the CFE Treaty was signed. However, NATO member countries are in no hurry to ratify it. In addition, the North Atlantic Alliance itself has since expanded from 19 to 26 states. And the former members of the Warsaw Pact that joined the bloc have still not formalized their transition to the “Western” group of countries as required by the CFE Treaty. Because of this, serious imbalances have arisen not in favor of Russia, since its balance still contains the weapons of former allies who have switched to the opposite camp.
Why is Moscow convening an emergency conference? Russia “will certainly raise the issue of NATO member countries refusing to ratify the CFE Treaty and the Baltic states not joining it,” Alexander Pikaev, head of the disarmament and conflict resolution department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vremya Novostey. Russia has already declared a moratorium on the implementation of the CFE Treaty. The expert believes that this was done for a reason. “In this way, Moscow wanted to attract the attention of the West to the situation that had developed within the framework of the treaty. And she succeeded,” says Mr. Pikaev. At the same time, the newspaper's interlocutor does not expect that serious progress can be achieved on the CFE Treaty.
Leading researcher at the Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Major General Vladimir Belous, agrees with him. In an interview with Vremya Novostey, he called the situation around the CFE Treaty complex and almost a dead end. “Moscow is seriously concerned about the deployment of US missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, the opening of American military bases in Romania and Bulgaria, and the increase in the number of alliance member countries in recent years. As a result, the ratio of conventional weapons in Europe is not in Russia's favor. NATO troops have a serious advantage over Russia in tanks (about four thousand), armored personnel carriers (five thousand), and military aircraft. But a new group of Eastern European candidate countries is approaching NATO membership - Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. Georgia and Ukraine are demonstrating their interest in joining the alliance,” the expert recalled.
Mr. Belous believes that in the new conditions it is necessary to find a different approach to ensuring security in Europe. “Russia needs to be offered at the conference an updated, convincing version instead of the old CFE Treaty. Although I don’t think that immediate results should be expected from the extraordinary conference. It will only open the way to negotiations that will further ensure a balance of conventional weapons in Europe,” said Vremya Novostey’s interlocutor.