Nov 30, 2007, 12:09 GMT
Moscow - President Vladimir Putin signed a moratorium on Russia's compliance with a Cold War arms control treaty in a move to defend Russia's might on the world scene, the Kremlin said Friday.
Angry over US plans to build a missile defence system in Eastern Europe and growing Western influence in post-Soviet states, Putin in July decreed Russia suspend participation in the treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).
The move comes on the final day of campaigning for Russia's parliamentary elections during which Putin, agitating as head of the dominant party's ticket, has accused the West of interfering and trying to weaken Russia.
Senior Duma Deputy Andrei Kokshin Friday hailed Putin's choice as a 'demonstration of the increased influence and authority of Russia in world politics,' he said on Vesti news channel.
The US and Europe have pressed Russia not to abstain from the treaty, saying it could lead to the disintegration of the network of Cold War security treaties and lead to a new arms race.
The moratorium on the treaty, which limits weapons stocks from the Ural mountains to the Atlantic, went into affect immediately with Putin's signature after the State Duma overwhelmingly approved the Kremlin's initiative in a 418-0 vote earlier this month.
Addressing Russia's top military officials last week, Putin couched suspension of the treaty as a necessary response to 'muscle flexing' by NATO, which Russia resent for its expansion into Eastern Europe.
We reserve 'the right to do that is necessary for our safety' and 'will not have our hands tied,' Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov said Friday, the Interfax news agency reported.
'By the treaty terms, we cannot even move a superfluous tank in our own territory,' he said.
The Foreign Ministry said with the moratorium, Russia will stop NATO inspections of its military, but senior military officers said it would not result in a drastic redeployment of troops along the country's western border.
The CFE treaty, signed between 16 NATO nations and six former Warsaw Pact nations in 1990, is a key part of Europe's disarmament system, but with the upheaval of the strategic balance brought on by the fall of the Soviet Union a new treaty was drafted in 1999.
Russia is the only country to have signed the amended treaty, boycotted by the United States and NATO members until Russia withdraws its troops form the breakaway regions it supports in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO countries Friday of allowing the de facto cessation of the treaty, saying they had 'concocted conditions (for Russia) that have nothing to do with the document.'
European leaders exhorted Russia this month not to scrap participation in the CFE, fearing it could trigger the unravelling of arms restraining agreements set since the Cold War amid recriminations over the planned US missile shield plans, which Moscow views as a threat to its security.
Germany and France's foreign ministers warned of the 'the spectre of a new Cold War,' saying in a joint statement that 'an erosion of the CFE treaty could lead to a new arms race and lines of confrontation.'
Lavrov said that Russia remained open to a renewed dialogue on the defunct treaty, but analysts were skeptical that it would be possible to return to the agreement.
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