MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. A document that might replace the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty) should be drafted on the basis of Moscow's proposals for security guarantees put forward in 2021, Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, an expert of the Valdai Discussion Club, has told TASS.
"There is some conventional way of resolving contradictions and defining obligations for each party. There is no need to invent anything original here. It is necessary to sign agreements on security guarantees for Russia. If there is an intention to avoid a large-scale conflict, we can follow this path, which was outlined by Russia in 2021," said Ofitserov-Belsky a senior researcher of the IMEMO institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, while commenting on Belarus' suspension of its participation in the CFE Treaty.
He also commented on the Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s statement that Minsk would be ready to resume the implementation of the CFE Treaty, provided that NATO members, which are parties to the treaty, resumed its implementation.
"The treaty has no prospects. The position of the Belarusian leadership illustrates Alexander Lukashenko’s political style of always having several options at hand and never burning bridges behind," Ofitserov-Belsky said.
On December 17, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published drafts of a treaty with the United States on security guarantees, as well as an agreement on measures to ensure the security of Russia and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Russian-US consultations on these issues were held on January 10, 2022 in Geneva. On January 12, there was a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels, and on January 13 these initiatives were discussed at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.
On January 26, 2022, the United States and NATO handed over to Russia written responses to the proposals on security guarantees. The US asked not to make the texts of these documents public, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg mentioned their main provisions. According to what they said, the West refused to make any fundamental concessions to Russia.