RUSSIA:Russia will not resign from a key arms control pact next week at a conference in Vienna, Moscow news agencies quoted foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as saying yesterday.
Russia requested the emergency conference to discuss the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty after President Vladimir Putin announced in April that Moscow was freezing its commitments under the pact.
Asked whether Russia could announce quitting the CFE treaty at the conference, Mr Lavrov said: "This issue will not be raised.
"This conference has been called so that we can once again spell out our concerns."
The CFE pact, originally signed in 1990 and updated in 1999, limits the number of battle tanks, heavy artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains.
Western partners have refused to ratify the amended pact until Russia pulls its forces out of Georgia and Moldova, as Moscow promised in 1999 when the treaty was reviewed.
Mr Putin said in an interview on Friday that Russia would pull out of the CFE treaty altogether if western partners failed to ratify it. However, he set no time limit.