VIENNA, June 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is committed to the goals of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, but thinks it should be updated, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.
"Russia remains committed to the noble goals that were about 20 years ago taken as a basis of the European mode of control over conventional weapons. But Europe has changed, and this circumstance necessitates a modernization of the set of tools used to achieve these goals," Anatoly Antonov, who heads the Russian delegation, told an extraordinary CFE session in Vienna.
Antonov, who is the director of the ministry's security and disarmament department, said Russia's "partners should realize that Russia cannot and will not fulfill the obsolete treaty at any cost to the detriment of its own security."
NATO's secretary general urged Friday swift ratification of the adapted CFE treaty and stated that Moscow's threat to aim missiles at Europe in response to similar U.S. plans was "unhelpful and anachronistic."
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer words came amid concerns raised by Russian President Vladimir Putin in late April who said Russia could withdraw from the CFE treaty, following U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Speaking ahead of a recent summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, Putin said the United States' mooted missile bases in Europe would be part of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and that Russia could be forced to aim its nuclear weapons at Europe.
"If part of the U.S.' strategic nuclear arsenal is located in Europe and our military experts find that it poses a threat to Russia, we will have to take appropriate retaliatory steps," he said. "We will have new targets in Europe."
Russia, concerned over Europe's refusal to ratify the re-drafted version of the accord, and the acceptance by certain European Union states of U.S. missile shield plans on the continent, proposed two week ago holding an emergency CFE conference in Vienna on June 12-15.
The original CFE treaty, signed in 1990 to reduce conventional military forces on the continent and amended in 1999 in Istanbul in line with post-Cold War realities, has so far only been ratified by Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine.
Moldova and Georgia have refused to ratify the CFE until Russia withdraws its troops from their territory. This issue has allegedly prevented other NATO countries from ratifying it as well.
