Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller will visit Moscow during her European tour from March 26 to April 5 to discuss the future of conventional arms control in Europe, the U.S. State Department said.
The upcoming tour, which also includes visits to Vienna, Tallinn, and London, is part of an on-going series of meetings with her European counterparts to discuss arms control-related issues of mutual interest.
In Moscow, Gottemoeller will also speak to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on arms control in the information age, the State Department said in a statement on Friday.
The United States has curbed its cooperation with Russia on the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty last year saying it would no longer exchange information on conventional weapons and troops with Russia four years after Russia stopped implementing the treaty in 2007.
The original CFE Treaty was signed in 1990 by 16 NATO countries and six Warsaw Pact members and came into force in 1992. The treaty set equal ceilings for each bloc on five key categories of conventional armaments and military hardware, including tanks, combat armored vehicles, artillery, assault helicopters and combat aircraft.
The CFE Treaty played a crucial stabilizing role during the breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe. However, the later document became largely outdated and irrelevant amid large-scale changes in the military and political environment.
Russia imposed a unilateral moratorium on the CFE treaty in December 2007, citing concerns over NATO's eastward expansion, U.S. missile defense plans for Europe, and the alleged refusal of the alliance's new members to ratify the adapted treaty. Moscow has repeatedly said it will resume its participation in the CFE if NATO member states ratify the adapted treaty.
