MOSCOW. May 10 (Interfax) - By denouncing the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Russia is not closing the door to negotiations concerning control over conventional weapons but believes their new types should be borne in mind, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and other systems, Russian Federation Council Deputy Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov said.
"By denouncing the CFE, Russia is removing a document that is no longer relevant from the agenda, but it is not shutting the door on a dialogue on control over conventional weapons. However, now it must be based on an equitable foundation," Kosachyov wrote on Telegram.
The CFE is a historical anachronism which has become entirely a thing of the past, he said.
"However, this absolutely doesn't close the door on the subject. An adapted version remains, and it can be further discussed, but it's now necessary to include new types of weapons, such as UAVs and other systems that have emerged since 1990," he said.
The CFE, which set limits on conventional weapons such as tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and aircraft, was signed in 1990 between the NATO countries on the one side and the former USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other, "whose armies were included on our side," Kosachyov said.
"And in line with the CFE, for instance, our southern flank is still covered by the armies of Romania and Bulgaria, which now looks completely absurd," he said.
Apart from this, "since 1990, NATO has been joined by new states, such as Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which were not on the map in 1990, as well as our former allies Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia," he said.
Thirty countries signed an updated version of the agreement "consistent with new realities" at an OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999, but only four of them - Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine - have ratified it, Kosachyov said.
"As for the NATO countries, they have refused to ratify the treaty on completely farfetched pretexts that have nothing to do with the CFE. They referred to Russian bases in Georgia, which we eventually withdrew a year ahead of schedule, and a small Russian contingent guarding arms depots in Transdniestria, which would also have been settled if the West hadn't compelled the Moldovan authorities to retract their consent to the so-called Kozak memorandum," Kosachyov said.
Russia suspended its participation in the CFE in 2007 "until the NATO countries ratify the Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE and start implementing this document in good faith," he said.
"Since then, not only have things not gotten off the ground, but the situation has also worsened dramatically, and this concerns not only massive arms supplies to Ukraine (which, as you should remember, is on our side according to the CFE). The U.S. calmly stationed its troops and weapons, for instance, in Kosovo even before [2007], without considering this to be in breach of the CFE, while NATO officials kept coming to inspect our military facilities at the same time," he said.
As concerns the possible continuation of a dialogue on the subject, Kosachyov suggested that the very proposal of talking with anyone as equal partners "causes an allergic reaction in NATO."
"But the alternative is worse, which everyone has had a chance to realize over the past year and a half," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to act as his official representative in considering the denouncement of the CFE Treaty.
The corresponding document was published on the official online database of legal information on Wednesday.
Under the presidential directive, the matter will be considered by both chambers of the Russian parliament.