By DPA
Moscow : Russia said Friday that it wants to start negotiations with the US and NATO this autumn on a new treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).
"We hope that concrete talks with our partners to modernize the treaty can start as early as the autumn," Interfax news agency quoted Anton Mazur, the Russian foreign ministry official responsible for the CFE, as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending the CFE last weekend amid an ongoing dispute with Washington over its plans to locate parts of a missile-defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The treaty, signed between the former Warsaw Pact countries and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and updated in 1999, regulates the number of armed forces, combat vehicles, aircraft and tanks the two sides have.
Moscow says the limits on armed forces are obsolete and aimed unilaterally at Russia.
The aim of the negotiations would be to demand that NATO members ratify the updated treaty as Russia has requested for some time, Mazur said.
Mazur stressed that Russia would continue to fulfil its CFE obligations for the 150-day period stipulated in the treaty.
Further inspections and an exchange of information under the treaty are scheduled for the middle of December.