MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - Finalizing Russia's withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) would take about six months, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
"Finalizing our country's withdrawal from the treaty in line with its provisions would take about six months," Ryabkov said at the State Duma on Tuesday.
"Upon the completion of the denouncement procedures, we will also have to undertake a number of steps in our relations with the other CFE states-parties," he said.
"The first of them is sending them notifications of our intention to withdraw from the treaty. This is supposed to be done at least 150 days prior to the planned withdrawal date and must include a statement on exceptional circumstances warranting this step," he said.
"No later than three weeks after such notification is sent, a conference of the states-parties shall be convened to consider matters related to the withdrawal," he said.
"We will voice our firm position based on a federal law [at the conference] [...] We will state to the NATO countries and the global community once again that it is precisely the collective West's ruinous actions that have made our participation in the CFE impossible," he said.