Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia's agreements with Georgia and Moldova on the withdrawal of its military forces, including military equipment restricted by the CFE, were bilateral and carried no obligations to third parties.
The agreements, concluded at the November 1999 summit in Istanbul of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), came to be known as the "Istanbul commitments."
According to Kamynin, Russia has since then implemented all of the clauses relating to the CFE and has also reached an agreement, independent of the CFE, to complete the withdrawal of its military bases from Georgia by the end of 2008.
During the Treaty Review Conference in 1996, NATO recognized the need to adapt the CFE Treaty in order to maintain its key role in European security arrangements.
Adaptation negotiations began in May 1996, reflecting the fact that fundamental changes had occurred since 1990, such as the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the U.S.S.R., the emergence of new successor states raising the Treaty's membership from 22 to 30 states, the process of democratization in central and eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War.
The adaptation process was completed with the signing of the legally-binding Agreement on Adaptation of the CFE Treaty at the OSCE's Istanbul summit, where NATO member states pledged to promote the soonest possible ratification of the agreement by their national parliaments. But unlike Russia, none of them has ratified it so far.
"If nothing changes in this respect, then at the third Treaty Review Conference in May 2006, the states will probably have to make fundamental decisions as to the future of 'the cornerstone of European security,'" Kamynin said.
