Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko today signed the law on the suspension of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), the Slavic country’s legal portal reported.
«Suspending the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe of 19 November 1990,» reads the law, which was initialled by Lukashenko and previously approved by the upper house of the Belarusian parliament in early May.
In April, the Belarusian president’s press service reported that the head of state gave his consent to the submission to parliament of the draft law prepared by the Council of Ministers on the suspension of the CFE Treaty, which Minsk ratified in 1992.
At the same time, it was recalled that in 2022 the Czech Republic and in 2023 Poland decided not to comply with the CFE Treaty with respect to Belarus, which in October 2023 suspended the treaty with respect to these countries as a retaliatory measure.
Moreover, in November 2023, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries announced their intention to suspend their participation in the CFE indefinitely, which, according to Minsk, effectively means the termination of the pact.
The Belarusian Defence Ministry, for its part, stated that Minsk does not plan to increase the number of military equipment and weapons in the near future due to the suspension of the treaty.
The CFE Treaty, which provides for the limitation of total levels of conventional arms and equipment, as well as mechanisms to verify compliance with agreed obligations, including information exchange and inspections, was signed in 1990 and adapted in 1997.
NATO countries did not ratify the adapted version of the document, and continued to abide by the 1990 provisions, which contained rules on conventional armaments based on the balance between the alliance and the now dissolved Warsaw Pact.
For this reason, Russia was forced to declare a moratorium on the implementation of the terms of the agreement in 2007 and in March 2015 suspended its membership of the treaty.
On 29 May 2023, President Vladimir Putin signed a law denouncing the CFE Treaty, which entered into force on 9 June.
