----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 4:53 PM Subject: [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Robertson: RUSSIA THE KEY STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK Want to send this story to another AOL member? Click on the heart at the top of this window. Russian ties key to European security - Robertson SOFIA, Oct 12 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson said on Thursday that boosting the alliance's relations with Russia was crucial to security in Europe. He also warned NATO applicants, mostly former Soviet allies, that they still had much to do to be able to join the alliance. ``We must invigorate NATO-Russia relations... No other nation's development can affect European security more than the development of Russia,'' Robertson said in a lecture to top officials and diplomats in Bulgaria. ``We want Russia's transformation to succeed. The key is in engagement, not disengagement,'' he said. Russia-NATO relations froze during the Kosovo crisis last year, when Russia vehemently opposed the alliance's bombing of Yugoslavia. Ties have thawed since then, but Moscow still opposes NATO's eastward expansion. ``We should achieve a relationship where a disagreement in one area does not lead to a breakdown of our entire cooperation,'' said Robertson, who said the NATO-Russia Council, set up in 1997, should be used to resolve differences. Robertson arrived in Sofia to attend a one-day meeting of defence ministers from eight aspiring NATO members on Friday. Representatives of Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia will discuss army reform and military cooperation as part of preparations for future membership. ENLARGEMENT WHEN NATO IS READY ``The alliance will enlarge again when NATO is ready, when nations aspiring to membership are ready, and when their membership will contribute to security and stability in Europe as whole,'' said Robertson. ``NATO wants countries that can generate security not merely consume,'' he said. The eight, mostly former Soviet allies, are in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme for Eastern Europe but were left out of the alliance's first round of enlargement in 1999, when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted. The alliance is expected to consider further enlargement at a summit in 2002. Robertson praised the uprising in Yugoslavia which toppled Slobodan Milosevic and said NATO's focus would be kept firmly on the Balkans. On Tuesday NATO said its 65,000-strong force in the Balkans would remain to provide security and stability, as changes in Belgrade entailed new challenges. Yugoslavia's new President Vojislav Kostunica is against the independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav Federation. 15:44 10-12-00 ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Make your business more productive! Instantly automate routine business tasks like payroll, time cards, expense reports, invoices, purchase orders, business forms and more - for free! Try Freeworks.com today at http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/Freeworks
