Withdrawing Russian military forces from Moldova and Georgia – a key-element for ratifying CFE Treaty

The abidance by the Russian Federation of the engagements taken at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul regarding the fully and unconditioned withdrawal of its military armed forces from the territory of The Republic of Moldova and Georgia is one of the key-elements for ratifying the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. (CFE Treaty) According to a press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, in Vienna, on May 30, began the works of the third Evaluation Conference of the CFE Treaty, where the delegation of the Republic of Moldova headed by the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Eugenia Kistruga has participated. The conference aims to evaluate the contribution of the Treaty to the European security, confirming the validity of this international instrument, and also examining the existent problems in the implementation process of the Treaty. Within a recent meeting in Chisinau with the president Vladimir Voronin, Paula De Sutter, assistant of the US State secretary for weapon control, declared that “the treaty on Conventional armed forces in Europe can not be ratified as long as the Russian Federation will not withdraw unconditionally its equipment and military troops from the territory of the Republic of Moldova. According to the American diplomat, USA can not sign this treaty if Russia “is not complying with the basic principles of this document, namely the stationing of foreign military forces on the national territory without the agreement of the host-state”. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serghei Lavrov declared yesterday at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that the military equipment Russia promised to evacuate at the Istanbul Summit in 1999 was withdrew long time ago, and starting 2003, evacuation of the munitions was suspended because there is no agreement on this issue. According to some data, at present in Transnistria 1.500 Russian soldiers are stationing and the soviet munitions are being used by Transnistrian separatists.