----- Original Message ----- From: Administrator <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2000 3:06 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Message not deliverable STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM [Read the dangerous chest-thumping in the final paragraph. If these lunatics aren't stopped they'll get their 'big bang' indeed.] Nine Nations to Make Bid for NATO Membership By William Drozdiak Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, May 20, 2000; Page A16 VILNIUS, Lithuania, May 19 - Nine central and East European countries banded together today and said they would ask NATO to invite them all to become members in 2002, a "big bang" that would expand the alliance to 28 nations and include for the first time several former Soviet republics. The declaration by the foreign ministers of the nine new democracies - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Albania and Macedonia - was an unprecedented show of cooperation. Now, NATO must figure out how to accommodate those ambitions and whether a 28-nation grouping could reach the kind of consensus on which the military alliance has historically based its operations. Besides the problems of adapting NATO's military command and decision-making processes to a much larger group, any expansion may pose a serious risk to relations with Russia, which accepted the incorporation of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO last year with great reluctance. Moscow has frequently warned that it will not tolerate the inclusion of former Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in NATO. President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a new defense policy that describes "the expansion of military alliances" outside Russian borders as a threat to Russian security interests; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all border Russian territory. But Lithuanian Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas, who diplomats said was the driving force behind the nine nations' "big bang" strategy, said the Baltic states would no longer be cowed by Russia. He and other ministers said that, contrary to Moscow's way of thinking, NATO expansion would bring greater stability along Russia's western frontier. "Having experienced the consequences of political indifference toward the fate of others far too often in our own history, we are committed to defend these values . . . of the Euro Atlantic community, including a belief in individual liberty, the free market and the rule of law," the ministers said in a statement. "We are not only prepared for the responsibilities and burdens of NATO membership, we are already coordinating our defense structures and policies with the Alliance," the statement said. "While each country should be considered on its own merits, we believe the integration of each democracy will be a success for us all, and the integration of all our countries will be a success for Europe and NATO." In the United States, how to deal with the next wave of NATO enlargement is emerging as one of the first important foreign policy challenges of the next administration. Both major presidential candidates, Vice President Gore and George W. Bush, sent encouraging letters to the meeting here today saying they would do their best to fulfill the aspirations of would-be member states. Any plan to expand NATO will require ratification by the legislatures of the 19 current members, including a two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate. This, several foreign ministers said today, would argue in favor of the "big bang" approach rather than successive waves of smaller groups that could become stalled in parliaments. "We know our biggest challenge will be with the other side of the Atlantic," Romanian Foreign Minister Petre Roman said. "But now we are committed to going through this process together." Until now, the scramble to get in line for alliance membership has resembled what Ron Asmus, the State Department's former point man on NATO enlargement, described as "an unseemly beauty contest" as each candidate touted itself in ways that cast regional rivals in an unflattering light. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - which enjoy strong support from their Nordic neighbors - have claimed that they possess the strongest democratic credentials and would be easier for NATO to accept than their southern rivals. But some NATO experts argue that the alliance's air war in Kosovo and its large peacekeeping force in the Balkans has proved that NATO's primary threat is no longer aggression by Russia but instability in southeastern Europe. In the wake of the Kosovo war, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Macedonia won lavish praise from NATO commanders for their crucial support role. The southern states have received fervent backing from France, Italy and Spain, which want to see the alliance shift its focus toward the Mediterranean. The Vilnius accord, however, is designed to stop such rivalry and make the case that NATO needs to make a bold leap toward becoming a pan-European security organization, reaching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. "This means we are no longer going our own ways, but are determined to fight as a team to get into NATO," said Slovenia's foreign minister, Dimitrij Rupel. Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek, who insisted his country wants to keep NATO's door open to other eastern democracies, said the experience of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic shows that "enlargement has strengthened, not weakened, the alliance by increasing its role as a guarantor of stability and security across the continent." In an interview, Geremek said he believes it is vital "to invite at least one, if not all three, Baltic states" into the alliance in 2002 to prove that NATO was not beholden to Russian demands. "The question is: Does the West have the political will to do what is good and right, even at the risk of antagonizing Russia?" Geremek said. "Our strategy should be peace and stability in Europe. Our goal should not be limited to having only friendly relations with Russia." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! 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