Putin pulls out of key EU arms treaty

[Daniel]

Putin pulls Russia out of key European conventional forces treaty over the U.S. missile programBy Staff

(EUNN) London - President Putin on Friday said Russia would pull out of a key arms treaty with Europe after having been unable to come to terms with the United States following Putin's visit with President George Bush.

The Kremlin said Putin had signed a decree suspending Russia's role in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty due to questions of "national security", though Saturday, following a meeting Henry Kissinger, Russia said it would be open to further dialog but that the CFE would be frozen within 150 days of notifying all those countries involved.

The decree reads that the decision followed exceptional circumstances related to the content of the 1990 CFE Treaty that concerned Russia's security and required emergency actions.

The document also reads that U.S. plans to deploy conventional arms in Bulgaria and Romania have "a negative impact" on compliance with CFE group limits.

Among other things, Russia will not comply with any conventional arms limits, the Foreign Ministry said, however, the amount of Russian weapons will depend on the situation in the military and political spheres.

Ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament, proposed Saturday that the State Duma hold an emergency session to adopt a draft law on freezing the CFE treaty.

Russia considers the 1990 CFE treaty outdated since it does not reflect either the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact or the breakup of the Soviet Union. Unlike NATO, the country also signed an upgraded CFE treaty in 1999.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concern about the emergence of new NATO bases close to its borders and the bloc's reluctance to ratify an updated CFE Treaty, which has regulated the deployment of troops and weapons on the continent since the Cold War.

Putin accused the U.S. earlier of starting an arms race with its deployment of the missile defense system, threatening at that time that Russia could pull out of the CFE treaty if the U.S. did not cooperate.

"Our partners are stuffing Eastern Europe with new weapons. A new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, a radar in the Czech Republic...what are we supposed to do?", said Putin.

NATO spokesperson James Appathurai said Saturday that NATO regreted Moscow's decision. "NATO considers this treaty to be an important cornerstone of European security."

Appathurai described Russia's move as "a disappointing step in the wrong direction."

In a bid to repair shattered ties between Russia and the United States, Henry Kissinger was in Moscow Friday for a closed door meeting with President Putin and other Russian diplomats. The decision to hold meetings was agreed to by Bush and Putin when the two met in the United States recently.

The panel called "Russia-USA: A Look Into the Future," led by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, declined to comment on the first Moscow session, but said it was a successful beginning to a series of high-level meetings.

"We discussed many issues. Our goal was not to get media coverage, score public relations points, or press home any propaganda messages. We came here to solve problems," Primakov said.

"We agreed to hold the next meeting in mid-December in Washington, D.C.," where the panelists will meet with President George W. Bush, he added.

Kissinger thanked Putin for his hospitality and praised the Russian leader for his realistic and open approach.

"We appreciate the time that President Putin gave us and the frank manner in which he explained his point of view," he said.

When asked whether U.S. unilateral interventionism was on the agenda, Kissinger said that "nuclear proliferation" and "nuclear threats," rather than U.S. policies, are the biggest danger to world peace.

"I do not think that U.S. expansion is a problem of the period. The problem of the period is how to avoid nuclear conflict and in this case we believe that Russia and America should have common objectives."

[Juggalette]

zZz that started to be a blur by the third line.

Idk , guess someone can read up on this stuffs regardless that it like a year old.