Russia warns West over conventional forces moratorium

May 3, 2007, 17:03 GMT

Moscow - A Russian-declared moratorium on a treaty limiting the number of conventional forces in Europe will not be lifted until NATO member-states ratify it, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Thursday.

The Adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe was signed by most European and former Soviet countries in 1999 as an updated version of a landmark 1989 treaty that set limits on armaments across the continent to reduce huge Red Army and NATO troop levels.

'Until our partners ratify this agreement, we will observe the moratorium,' Ivanov, until recently Russia's defence minister and considered a leading possible contender for the country's presidency in 2008, said in remarks quoted by Interfax.

'Why should we fulfil the terms of the document uniaterally?' Ivanov asked during a trip to the Bryansk region, 400 kilometres southwest of Moscow.

The adapted treaty applies the earlier agreement's limits to the Eastern European and formerly Soviet states that came about after communism's collapse.

While Russia and three other former Soviet republics ratified the document, NATO has made its ratification contingent on Russia's fulfilment of agreements to remove troops from Moldova and Georgia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a moratorium in the agreement in an address to parliament last month, amid rising tension between Russia and the West on issues including democracy in Russia, energy security and a planned US missile-defence shield.

Ivanov, like Putin in his address, said Russia should not be expected to abide by the treaty, which covers the area from the Atlantic Ocean to Russia's Ural Mountains, regarding troop positions on its own territory.

He charged that NATO members were stuck in a Cold War mindset, since the treaty was signed 'when there existed two blocs, two camps.' 'We turned away from the bloc system. Others didn't.

'We couldn't have the necessary number of troops, including armour, during counterterrorist operations in Chechnya,' he said of campaigns to fight separatism in the restive southern province.

Ivanov's remarks came as he toured the site of a chemical weapons storage and destruction site near the Ukrainian border. He re- emphasized Russia would destroy all its chemical weapons as outlined in the 1993 Convention on Chemical Weapons.

The deputy prime minister said that of 40,000 tons of poisonous material in the country, 8,000 tons had been destroyed and that over 1 billion dollars would be spent on further destruction this year.

By 2012, the six nations that declared chemical weapons stock piles in 2005 - Russia, the United States, India, Albania, Libya and an unidentified state thought to be South Korea - are to have eliminated all supplies.