The Russian diplomat said the steady development of cooperation between Russia and NATO did not mean that all problems in bilateral relations had been solved.
Yakovenko said that it would be appropriate to say the issues had become less acute. He added that Moscow was still convinced that NATO expansion was not seriously justified.
"The CFE Treaty remains the biggest unresolved issue in Russia-NATO relations," he said. "After Russia and Georgia reached the agreement on Russian military bases, NATO's attempts to link the ratification of the adapted version of the CFE Treaty to this issue have become an anachronism."
He also said the withdrawal of Russian military equipment from Transdnestr (a self-proclaimed republic in Moldova) did not depend on Moscow, but rather on the settlement of the political crisis in the region.
"We hope that our NATO colleagues will make the appropriate steps and start fulfilling the most important, in our opinion, commitment made in Istanbul - to enforce the adapted version of the CFE Treaty as soon as possible," the diplomat said.
When answering a question about whether or not it was possible to solve such issues quickly, Yakovenko said: "We cannot afford to become bogged down by the problems that we have inherited from the past and that are still distracting us from solving the issues that are genuinely highly important for security."
Russia ratified the adapted version of the CFE Treaty a year ago. On June 19, 2004, Vladimir Putin signed the law on ratifying the Adaptation Agreement for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.
The agreement envisions serious corrections to the system of limitations and other provisions of the Treaty to reflect changes in the military-political situation on the continent and opens up new possibilities for CFE membership to be expanded.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have also ratified the agreement. It will come into force only after all the CFE member countries have submitted their ratification certificates to the depositary body (the government of the Netherlands).
Moscow considers the inclusion of new NATO members, primarily the Baltic states, in the framework of the CFE to be a crucial issue.
Russian officials always insisted that "gray areas" that are not covered by arms control regimes should be eliminated.
