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Russia Officially Withdraws from CFE Treaty After 16 Years

Photo taken on April 16, 2021 shows the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in Moscow. (Xinhua/Evgeny Sinitsyn)

Russia does not currently see the possibility of concluding arms control agreements with NATO countries, it added…reports Asian Lite News

Russia has formally withdrawn from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) at midnight on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow announced.

“As of 00:00 hours on November 7, 2023, the CFE withdrawal procedure for Russia, which was suspended by our country in 2007, has been completed. Thus, the international legal document has finally gone into history for us,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying.

Russia does not currently see the possibility of concluding arms control agreements with NATO countries, it added.

“Authorities of NATO member states and the bloc’s clients clearly demonstrated their inability to negotiate. As of today, any arms control agreements with them are impossible.”

Two other agreements related to the CFE had ceased to be valid for Russia — the Budapest Memorandum of November 3, 1990, which set the maximum levels of conventional weapons and equipment for the six Warsaw Pact countries; and the Flank Agreement of May 31, 1996, which modified the original treaty.

The CFE, originally signed in 1990 by the then NATO members and the then six Warsaw Treaty states, came into force in 1992.

The pact was aimed at establishing a balance between the two military alliances by setting limits on the quantities of weapons and military equipment that all parties were allowed to amass.

In 2007, Russia to declared a moratorium on the implementation of the agreement in 2007.

On March 11, 2015, the country suspended its participation in meetings of the Joint Consultative Group on CFE Treaty, thus completing the process of suspending its membership in the treaty, but it continued to be a partyfrom a legal perspective.

Since then, Russia’s interests in the Joint Consultative Group have been represented by Belarus.

On May 29, President Vladimir Putin signed a law on the denunciation of the CFE, which came into force on June 9.

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WHO Chief calls for global pandemic treaty

Ghebreyesus said that the defining characteristic of the pandemic is the lack of sharing: of data, information, pathogens, technologies and resources…reports Asian Lite News.

The Covid-19 pandemic has proved that the world needs a pandemic treaty to strengthen both the World Health Organization (WHO) and global health security, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.

“This is an idea whose time has come,” said Ghebreyesus, in his closing remarks at the WHO’s 74th World Health Assembly (WHA), which took placee online from May 24 to Tuesday.

Ghebreyesus said that the defining characteristic of the pandemic is the lack of sharing: of data, information, pathogens, technologies and resources.

“A treaty would foster improved sharing, trust and accountability, and provide the solid foundation on which to build other mechanisms for global health security.

“Pandemics are a threat to all of us. So we must work together to build a healthier, safer, fairer future — for all of us,” he said.

At the 2021 WHA, which had the theme “Ending this pandemic, preventing the next one”, Ghebreyesus also called for a stronger and better-financed WHO.

“At present, pathogens have greater power than WHO. They are emerging more frequently in a planet out of balance. They exploit our interconnectedness and expose our inequities and divisions” he noted.

People head to the entrance of a mass COVID-19 vaccination site at the United Center in Chicago, the United States,

“The safety of the world’s people cannot rely solely on the goodwill of governments,” Ghebreyesus said, adding the need for more resources and authority along with an international treaty to connect countries that would strengthen the world’s health security.

Ghebreyesus noted that the continuing decline in global Covid cases and deaths is very encouraging, “but it would be a monumental error for any country to think the danger has passed”.

The world still faces “the same vulnerabilities that allowed a small outbreak to become a global pandemic”, he said.

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Global leaders call for new pandemic treaty

Global leaders called for a treaty that would provide a framework for international cooperation to immediately exchange information at the start of possible pandemics…reports Asian Lite News

Twenty-five world leaders have supported a proposal from European Council President Charles Michel to draw up a new international treaty on pandemic preparedness in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

Leaders including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha signed an opinion piece along with Michel and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, dpa news agency reported.

“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the piece, published on Tuesday, said.

The article made the case for a new agreement anchored in the WHO’s constitution that would improve global preparedness for pandemics and ability to respond.

Zulema Riquelme, a 46-year-old nursing technician, receives a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Metropolitan Hospital in Santiago, Chile


A treaty would provide a framework for international cooperation to immediately exchange information at the start of possible pandemics, and channel global resources for research into possible treatments and vaccines, Michel said at a virtual press conference with Tedros on Tuesday.

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“The time to act is now,” Tedros said, “We must not allow the memories of this crisis to fade and go back to business as usual.”

Michel first put forward the idea in November, but has now won public support from heads of state or government from Indonesia, Kenya, Costa Rica, Tunisia and South Korea, among others.

People wearing face masks visit the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C during covid 19 surge

However, notable omissions from the article’s signatories include the US and China.

Initial reaction among the 194 WHO member countries was “positive”, according to Tedros, who said he hoped all would help take forward debate on the initiative ahead of May’s World Health Assembly.

It was too soon to say whether the treaty could cover contentious issues such as intellectual property on vaccines or more equitable sharing of shots, the WHO chief added.

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