Putin Suspends Arms Pact Over Missile Dispute
Instead, Mr. Putin said, the Kremlin would use its future compliance with the treaty as a bargaining point in the dispute with United States over American proposals to install missile defenses in Europe.
Mr. Putin’s announcement, made in his annual address to Parliament, underscored the Kremlin’s anger at the United States for proposing a new missile-defense system, which the Bush administration insists is meant to counter potential threats from North Korea and Iran.
It also demonstrated Russia’s lingering frustrations with the treaties negotiated by the Kremlin in the 1990s, when Russia, still staggering through its post-Soviet woes, was much weaker and less assertive on the world stage than today.
Though the step by Mr. Putin was an incremental one, it was highly symbolic. The agreement in question, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, known by the initials C.F.E., was signed in 1990 by the N.A.T.O. nations and the nations of the former Warsaw Pact, including Russia. It required the reduction and relocation of much of the main battle equipment then located along the former east-west dividing line, including tanks, artillery pieces, armored vehicles and attack aircraft. It also established an inspection regime.
Under the treaty, more than 50,000 pieces of military equipment were converted or destroyed by 1995. With its initial ambitions largely achieved, it was renegotiated in 1999, adding a requirement that Russia withdraw its forces from Georgia and Moldova, two former Soviet republics where tensions and intrigue with Moscow run high.
Russia has not withdrawn its troops, and the revised treaty has not been ratified by most of the signatory nations, including the United States, which has withheld ratification until the Kremlin complies with the troop-withdrawal commitments.
Though in many ways the treaty had already stalled, it remained a powerful diplomatic marker, a central element in the group of agreements that defused the threat of war in Europe as communism collapsed.
Mr. Putin abruptly called into question the treaty’s future today, announcing a moratorium on compliance and seizing two contentious issues, the proposed American missile-defense system and the West’s reluctance to ratify the latest treaty. Mr. Putin pointedly did not use any of the conciliatory language he sometimes inserts in his speeches to leaven his criticisms of the United States.
He did not define specifically what he meant by a moratorium. But he suggested that Russia might withdraw completely from the treaty if he is not satisfied with the results of negotiations with the N.A.T.O.-Russia Council, an organization created in 2002 to increase cooperation between the former enemies.
“I propose discussing this problem,” he said, “and should there be no progress in the negotiations, to look at the possibility of ceasing our commitments under the C.F.E. treaty.”
That remark drew the loudest applause of the day from Russia’s largely compliant parliament, which for the most part sat quietly during Mr. Putin’s 70-minute speech. It also drew a swift reaction from N.A.T.O.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the organization’s secretary-general, expressed continued support for the treaty, and demanded clarification from Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.
“I expect Foreign Minister Lavrov to explain the words of his President,” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer told news agencies.
The Russian president’s remarks coincided with the latest effort by the Bush administration to promote its missile-defense proposal, which would include building an interceptor rocket base in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.
Russia has said that the missile defense plans could upset the balance of forces in Europe, and represent an escalation that could lead to a new cold war.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice dismissed those Russian concerns in an appearance today in Oslo, calling them “purely ludicrous.”
But even as she spoke, Mr. Putin was stepping up the dispute, part of a day in which he also chided the West for what he called meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs in the guise of democracy-promotion efforts.
Mr. Putin also restated to the Parliament his intention to leave office next year, at the end of his second four-year term. The Russian constitution limits each president to a maximum of two terms, but there have been calls by politicians loyal to Mr. Putin to set the rule aside and remain in office, and speculation has never fully subsided that he might.
But Mr. Putin was clear about his intentions today, saying that the annual address was his last. “In the spring of next year, my duties end, and the next state-of-the-nation speech will be delivered by a different head of state,” he said.
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