ESTONIA CONCERNED OVER CFE TREATY CHANGES.

A senior Estonian Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that changes just conceded to Russia in the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (see Monitor, June 3) "damage Estonia’s and Latvia’s security interests." Under the revised treaty, according to the official, Russia is allowed to maintain 600 tanks in the Pskov region opposite the two Baltic states, instead of the 180 allowed until now. The U.S. had assured Estonia that the increase to be conceded to Russia would still limit its tank holdings in that area to 300, the official said. He found it "disappointing" that the countries concerned had not been consulted on what he described as a bilateral U.S.-Russian understanding, subject to approval of other parties to the CFE treaty. Estonian president Lennart Meri had similarly told a weekend news conference that bilateral U.S.-Russian negotiations on revising the CFE treaty affect all Baltic Sea countries’ security interests and urged those countries to "take a careful look" at the revisions. (BNS, June 3)

Estonian Independence Movement Figure Arrested.