----- Original Message ----- From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: BALKAN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; SIEM NEWS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: NATO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 10:35 PM Subject: NATO boss brings warmer ties but no breakthroughs [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Build a marketing database and send targeted HTML and text e-mail newsletters to your customers with List Builder. http://www.listbuilder.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NATO boss brings warmer ties but no breakthroughs By Andrei Shukshin MOSCOW, Feb 21 (Reuters) - NATO chief George Robertson's top-level talks in Russia have failed to narrow wide differences, but have softened the open hostility which had previously marred relations, Russian papers said on Wednesday. The NATO secretary general was due early Wednesday to brief NATO ambassadors on the results of his meetings with President Vladimir Putin and senior ministers, before delivering a lecture at Russia's elite diplomatic academy. No information was released on his meeting with the envoys, at which Robertson was due to detail a Russian proposal for a cut-price missile defence system for Europe, an alternative to a controversial and costly U.S. National Missile Defence (NMD). "The parties remained on their set positions," the daily Kommersant quoted a Russian source close to the negotiations in the Kremlin as saying. Despite scepticism among some European NATO members about the NMD, which Russia says will spark a new arms race, Robertson defended the U.S. drive to deploy a system to protect itself against strikes from "rogue states" such as Iraq or Iran. "And still, strange as it may seem, both sides were satisfied with the talks. The progress made seemed to lie in the fact that for the first time Russia and NATO exchanged views without hysteria and mutual recriminations," Kommersant said. Russia severed relations with NATO in March 1999 in protest against a U.S.-led air campaign against Yugoslavia aimed at ending a clampdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. But a thaw in ties began last year when Putin met Robertson in the Kremlin. RUSSIAN BID A "HISTORIC" BREAKTHROUGH Speaking on RTR state television on Tuesday, Robertson called Moscow's rival bid "historic" as it showed Russia shared the concerns of Western nations about the rogue missile threat. "That is a historic moment, a turning point in our relations in the sense that we agree that there is a rocket technology problem and we will do our best to find a solution to it," Robertson said through a Russian interpreter. That conclusion seemed at odds with Moscow's view that none of the countries on Washington's blacklist will be able to launch a long-range rocket attack in the foreseeable future. For that reason, Moscow hopes its three-stage defence plan for Europe will never go beyond stage two -- nipping emerging threats in the bud by political means, even if stage one shows there is a potential threat. In the first stage, experts would assess the present and future risks. Stage three, dispatching a compact anti-missile force to a feared rocket launch area, is seen as a remote, last resort. The system, unlike the NMD, will not reduce the strategic importance of Russia's nuclear deterrent although China is nervous that any form of missile defence will neutralise its tiny arsenal. Moscow and Beijing form the bulwark of opposition to the United States' much broader missile defence plan, saying they are aimed against their nuclear arsenals. Kommersant said Putin urged Robertson to help stop development of the NMD before it reached a point of no return where Russia would be forced to "tighten its belt and go for 'adequate (counter) measures."' Robertson told RTR that while Washington had made up its mind on how it would protect itself from a possible missile threat, Europe was still examining the issue and Moscow's proposal was welcome. NATO'S EXPANSION STILL A SORE POINT The daily Sevodnya said Robertson's upbeat tone in Moscow could not hide another major area of disagreement -- NATO's eastwards enlargement, particularly for ex-Soviet republics like the three Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia), which Russia sees as a security threat. The alliance says the expansion will not harm Russia's interests and Robertson, who reopened NATO's liaison office in Moscow, has called for an eventual strategic partnership. "Robertson's attempts to give a high-key tone to his meetings, which he wanted to centre on thawing Russia-NATO ties, stumbled on a stone-hard 'no' from his hosts to the alliance's expansion and U.S. NMD plans," Sevodnya said. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/SNN/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
