§ Mr. Harry BarnesTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the impact which negotiations among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States on the deployment and control of their military forces is likely to have on international commitments previously entered into by the governments of the former Soviet Union.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggRussia, as the continuing state, takes on all rights and obligations of the former Soviet Union. We have, however, also urged the other former republics to take on those rights and obligations as far as they can apply to them.
The Minsk agreement on armed forces and border troops confirms the legal right of states to create their own armed forces. A high-level working group has been set up at NATO headquarters in Brussels to work with the new states to ensure that they uphold their responsibilities under the CFE treaty.
The Alma Ata agreement on nuclear weapons and the Minsk agreement on strategic forces will have implications for the strategic arms reduction talks agreement between the US and former Soviet Union and the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, NPT. We and our allies are actively pursuing with the former republics the means to ensure that these agreements are fully honoured and that all former republics other than Russia accede to the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states as soon as possible.