Kazakhstan suspends participation in European arms agreement

MOSCOW

Kazakhstan announced on Friday that it has suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty).

The relevant decree was signed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and published on the presidential website.

The CFE Treaty was signed in Paris in November 1990 by representatives from 16 NATO member states and six Warsaw Pact member states.

The treaty established limits on the numbers of battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm and larger, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters in the European area, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Urals. Twenty-eight countries ultimately became signatories.

An updated version of the treaty was presented at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Istanbul in 1999. Only Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine ratified this revised edition.

Russia suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty in 2007 and officially withdrew from the agreement in 2023, citing concerns that NATO's expansion had exceeded the treaty's established thresholds and proposed changes to the treaty conditions, but no consensus was reached.

In response to Russia's criticism of the treaty, NATO countries decided to suspend Moscow's participation in the CFE Treaty indefinitely. Later, similar decisions were announced by Belarus, Ukraine, Türkiye, Hungary, Moldova, and other countries.