Russia pulls out of key European arms treaty

Russia has frozen its participation in a key arms control treaty that limits the deployment of military forces in Europe, the Kremlin announced Saturday.
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree halting Russia's application of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) arms control treaty due to "exceptional circumstances... broaching on the security of the Russian Federation," the statement said.
Russia has threatened several times to pull out of the treaty amid unease over US military encroachment into territory once part of the former Soviet Union, including Washington's plans to develop a missile defence shield in Europe.
The Kremlin said the suspension would take effect from the day of the signing. But the move "does not mean that we have closed the door on dialogue," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The suspension is motivated by some points of the initial 1990 accord "concerning the security of the Russian Federation," it said. The CFE treaty, which came into force in 1992, is one of the key post-Cold War security accords in Europe.
It limits deployments of tanks and troops in countries belonging to Nato and the former Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe and lays down measures aimed at confidence-building, transparency and co-operation between member states. Putin had threatened three months ago to pull Russia out of the CFE until all of Nato's current members ratified it.
"It would be appropriate to announce a moratorium on Russian adherence to this treaty until it has been ratified by all Nato countries without exception," he said in a state of the nation speech in April. Nato on Saturday branded Russia's decision to pull out of the treaty as "disappointing."
"It's a disappointing move, a step backwards. Nato considers this treaty to be an important foundation of European security and stability," Nato spokesman James Appathurai said. The CFE was signed in Paris in 1990 by the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and the former Warsaw Pact.
But it was adapted in Istanbul in 1999 following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in order to limit deployments on a country-by-country basis. Nato states have refused to ratify the new pact on the grounds that Moscow has failed to honour commitments made in Istanbul to withdraw Russian forces from the ex-Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.
Putin's insistence that all countries ratify the CFE appeared particularly aimed at the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were once part of the Soviet Union and are not part of the treaty. The three are all now members of Nato.