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Shadow of Russia looms large over NATO summit
By Simon Sturdee
AFP
RIGA
Petroleumworld.com 11 29 06Some 15 years after NATO saw out the Cold War without firing a shot, the shadow of Russia was still looming large on Tuesday over a meeting of the new-look military alliance's 26 members in Riga.
With much of the attention focused on NATO's troubled mission in Afghanistan, Russia was a notable sub-issue due to its new energy superpower status and unease at the alliance's inexorable enlargement eastwards.
Moscow is an "important and privileged partner," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said ahead of a working dinner in the Latvian capital of heads of state that kicked off the summit.
"That is why rejuvenating NATO-Russia relations is another major step in finishing Europe's unfinished business. From operations to cooperation in areas of common interest -- such as terrorism or missile defence -- the NATO-Russian relationship also has much unexploited potential," Scheffer said.US President George W. Bush, too, highlighted the importance of cooperation with Russia in an address at Riga University ahead of the meeting.
But neither shied away from encouraging former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia in their ambitions to join NATO -- comments likely to be frowned on by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was keeping an eye on proceedings from a summit of the CIS group of ex-Soviet states in Minsk.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted on Tuesday as saying that Moscow had been "deceived" by previous NATO enlargements.
"We were simply deceived, they said one thing and did another," Ivanov told students during a visit to the northwest Russian city of Saint Petersburg, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Ivanov said Russia could not comment on the decision by sovereign states to join the alliance but added that the build-up of military infrastructure in the Baltic states did not help NATO aims of peacekeeping and counter-terrorism.
In an interview published on Tuesday, Ivanov also criticised planned expansion of a US anti-missile defence system in Europe as a "destabilising" move that Russia would respond to.
The Pentagon said in May that the United States is consulting European allies about deploying missile defences in Europe to thwart a Middle Eastern ballistic missile threat.
"I assure you we will find asymmetrical... ways to defend our national interests and guarantee the security of the union state" between Russia and Belarus, Ivanov declared.
But both sides are keen to paper over such differences as Russia moves closer to World Trade Organisation membership and as Europe seeks to secure energy supplies -- a key security issue for NATO in the 21st century.
"Russia's shut off of energy deliveries to Ukraine demonstrated how tempting it is to use energy to achieve political aims and underscored the vulnerability of consumer nations to their energy suppliers," US Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar said in Riga on Monday.
"Russia retreated from the standoff after a strong Western reaction, but how would NATO have responded if Russia had maintained the embargo?" Luga said.
The move by Russian energy giant Gazprom to switch off the natural gas taps to Ukraine in January amid a price war, affected some European supplies and highlighted the European Union's strong dependence on Russian energy.
Russia has also been criticised for allowing state-owned gas company Gazprom to invest in European energy companies but restricting reciprocal moves.
Putin was also expected to make a surprise appearance in Riga having invited himself to a dinner for French President Jacques Chirac's 74th birthday on Wednesday. But late Tuesday the Kremlin said the visit would not be possible, Russian agencies reported.
AFP 28 2059 GMT 11 06
Copyright© 2001 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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