MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Moscow hopes that the West will take Moscow’s signal seriously after its withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at a State Duma plenary session on Tuesday.

"I hope that in the West, in our adversaries’ camp, all these signals are taken very seriously. This is a historic moment, [Western countries] must draw conclusions," the senior diplomat said talking about Russia withdrawing from the CFE Treaty.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the process for denouncing the CFE. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was appointed as his official representative for the review of the CFE Treaty denunciation by the Russian parliament.

The CFE Treaty was signed in 1990 and amended in 1999. However, the NATO countries failed to ratify the amended text of the CFE and have continued to adhere to the 1990 provisions, based on the conventional arms balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. As a result, Russia was compelled to declare a moratorium on implementing the terms of the treaty in 2007.

On March 11, 2015, Russia suspended its participation in meetings of the Joint Consultative Group on the CFE Treaty, completing the process of suspending its membership in the CFE while remaining a purely de jure party to the treaty. Since then, Belarus has represented Russia’s interests in the Joint Consultative Group.