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Rumsfeld Says NATO Still Open for Baltic States
TURKU, Finland, June 9 (News Agencies) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Saturday assured three tiny Baltic states that their bid for NATO membership will not take a back seat to US missile defense plans.
Rumsfeld briefed Nordic and Baltic defense ministers here on his lengthy talks in Brussels Friday with Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov on a new framework for US-Russian relations.
When asked whether the Baltics would be subordinated to US efforts to overcome russian opposition to its missile defense plans, Rumsfeld responded emphatically: "No."
"I don't see they are connected in any way," he said.
He said NATO's doors remained open for new members and Russia has no veto over alliance decision on membership.
"The Russian government had views with respect to NATO enlargement the last time, and NATO enlargement went ahead," he said. "And indeed a number of the countries that joined NATO consider their relationships (with Russia) to be very much better since they've gone into NATO."
He said the alliance would listen to Russia, but it "has decided that no country should have a veto over who joins NATO."
The assurances follow a strikingly non-confrontational meeting between Rumsfeld and Ivanov in which neither man raised the subject of NATO enlargement or the Baltics, a senior US defense official said.
"There is a sense that there is real potential now to have a serious and meaningful and ongoing dialogue about a new US-Russian relationship across all issues," the official said.
Rumsfeld and Ivanov's talks focused mainly on US-Russian relations and US plans to build defenses against ballistic missiles that go beyond the limits of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.
Ivanov reaffirmed Moscow's opposition to changes in the ABM treaty, but left the door open to further dialogue with Washington on a new strategic framework.
With NATO expected to decide next year whether to admit new members, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are coming down to the wire in their bid to become the first former Soviet republics to join the alliance.
Washington is developing a more detailed US position on NATO enlargement in 2002 that could be unveiled next week in Europe when US President George W. Bush holds his first summits with the Europeans and with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Despite Russia's fierce opposition to NATO expansion into former Soviet territory, Washington has long insisted that no country will be excluded by reason of history or geography.
The last round of expansion in 1999, which coincided with a NATO air war against Yugoslavia, infuriated Moscow by admitting three former Soviet-bloc countries -- the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Now nine countries are hoping to be admitted at a NATO summit in Prague next year. Besides the Baltic states, they are Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Macedonia.
Moscow has gradually reestablished ties with NATO that were broken during the war against Belgrade, culturally and historically close to Russia.
Ivanov said Friday that he expects a new NATO liaison office to be opened in Moscow by the end of the year, and he described Russia's cooperation with NATO in Balkans peacekeeping "a great success."
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis in May said Lithuanians were "sick and tired" of being kept out of NATO because of Russia's objections.
But US and NATO officials also have warned that the criteria for membership are tough, and that countries must show that they will add to the alliance's security.
The tiny Baltic states had no national armies when they gained independence in 1991. But they now have 22,500 active duty troops that are trained to operate with NATO and together.
They have a joint peacekeeping battalion that serves in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They share a defense college for staff officers, a naval squadron and a radar network.
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