From Novosti
BRUSSELS, May 10- The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe is about to collapse, a senior Russian military official said Thursday.
“The CFE Treaty is on the brink of collapse, but Russia did not want that,” said Army Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces.
Russia’s representative at the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council meeting, Yury Baluyevsky, has come to Brussels to explain Russia’s recent statements on the CFE and the U.S. plans to its missile defense system in Central Europe.
“We hope our concerns will be heard,” Baluyevsky said, describing the CFE Treaty as the cornerstone of European security.
He also said Iran’s missile threat has been exaggerated and cannot serve to justify the deployment of elements of U.S. missile defense in Europe.
“The threat posed by Iran’s missile potential is overrated and unrealistic, and may not serve as grounds for the deployment of American missile defense assets in Europe,” he said.
Gen. Baluyevsky said Iran is unlikely to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles in the foreseeable future since it lacks essential technology.
“Iran has no sponsors, and I am sure it will have none,” he said.
The CFE Treaty was signed in 1990 by the then-22 NATO members and the now defunct Warsaw Pact to enhance arms control in Europe, and amended in 1999 in Istanbul in line with post-Cold War realities.
NATO countries have not ratified the new version, demanding that Russia first withdraw from Soviet-era bases from Georgia and Moldova under its Istanbul commitments. Moscow says there is no link between the two documents, and has argued that NATO newcomers Slovakia and the three Baltic states have not joined the CFE at all, despite preliminary agreement that they would do so.
