At the opening of a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance has not seen signs of Russian troop withdrawals along the Ukraine border, as Moscow has claimed. A senior U.S. State Department official had called the promised pullback a “gesture,” but a welcome one.
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NATO foreign ministers agreed Tuesday to intensify the alliance partnership with Ukraine and to provide additional assets for Eastern European partners.
“Over the past 20 years, NATO has consistently worked for closer cooperation and trust with Russia,” the ministers said in a statement. “However, Russia has violated international law” and its agreements with NATO, the statement said. “It has gravely breached the trust upon which our cooperation must be based.”
NATO does not rule out posting troops in nations at Russia’s front door, Rasmussen said, something the alliance has largely refrained from doing so as not to antagonize Russia. NATO could establish permanent bases in frontline allied nations, alliance officials said this week.
“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine challenges our vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace,” Rasmussen said. “We are now considering all options to enhance our collective defense, including an update and further development of defense plans, enhanced exercises and also appropriate deployment.”
The United States has joined Black Sea naval exercises while NATO members have increased air patrols over the Baltic states and sent AWACS surveillance planes aloft over Poland and Romania.
Rasmussen’s comments came as Eastern European leaders expressed unhappiness with the pace at which NATO has sought to bulk up its presence on the front lines with Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the results have been “unsatisfactory.”
“We are gaining something step by step, but the pace of NATO increasing its military presence for sure could be faster,” he said.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry was meeting Tuesday with NATO members and envoys from Ukraine, which is not a member but which cooperates with the alliance, to Russia’s frequent dismay. In Washington, the House could act Tuesday on an aid package for Ukraine, whose new Western-oriented leaders have committed to economic and political reform and elections in May.
The 28-member alliance’s regular spring meeting of foreign ministers was energized by Russia’s move last month to invade and then annex Crimea from Ukraine, and to deploy as many as 40,000 troops along the Russia-Ukraine border.
“We will show our steadfast commitment to NATO’s collective defense,” Rasmussen said. “We will take the necessary steps to make it clear to the world that no threat against NATO allies will succeed,” and also look for ways to support Ukraine, the NATO chief said.
The alliance, originally formed as a U.S.-backed bulwark to the Soviet Union, has expanded over the past 15 years to include many former Soviet satellite states, often over Russian complaints. NATO sometimes invites Russia to attend sessions, but not this time.
“We will make clear that Russia’s actions are unacceptable. We will take decisions on which cooperation with Russia is still appropriate,” Rasmussen said. “Russia has undermined the principles on which our partnership is built, and has breached its own international commitments. So we cannot go on doing business as usual.”
“Clearly we have a NATO that is now in the business, in the context of events in and around Ukraine, of rebalancing its mission,” a senior U.S. official said.
NATO has focused for the past two decades on joint missions, such as in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Without the organizing principle of collective defense against the Soviet Union, however, the alliance has sometimes seemed adrift. The United States has warned that it was overfunding NATO’s “expeditionary missions” while European nations cut defense budgets.
Those missions are still important, the U.S. official said, but after the Russian show of force, “the alliance is now very much focused once again on its core and founding mission, which is defense of allied territory.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe U.S. objectives ahead of the meetings.
Rasmussen said Tuesday that allied intelligence does not show that Russia is scaling back what he called a “massive military buildup.”
The Russian Defense Ministry announced Monday that a motorized infantry battalion would return home after deployment along the border with eastern Ukraine. A battalion can range in size from a few hundred to about 1,500 soldiers.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the battalion is returning to its home base in the Samara region along the Volga River.
Russia has maintained from the start of the crisis that it is conducting only legal, routine military training and has no intention of extending its reach beyond Crimea. But Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials have warned that an incursion could take place at any moment — and that, at the very least, the Russian activity appears designed to put pressure on Kiev’s fledgling government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone call Monday that he had ordered a “partial withdrawal” of troops, according to Merkel’s office. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also informed Kerry of the announced withdrawal.
Russia has insisted that the troops are conducting a training exercise.
On Monday, U.S. officials said that in spite of the Russian withdrawal announcement, they could not confirm that any Russian troop movement had taken place.
“I cannot confirm . . . one way or the other whether the Russians are pulling troops back,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters, adding that the Russian force on Ukraine’s border numbers in the “tens of thousands.”
The United States and European allies consider Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region illegal and insist that it will never be recognized. Washington and the European Union have approved two rounds of relatively mild sanctions, and are considering much more far-reaching penalties on Russian oil and gas industries.
President Obama signed an executive order in March authorizing further sanctions if Russian forces enter Ukraine beyond Crimea.
The United States has demanded that Russia withdraw its troops, open talks with the Ukrainian government and agree to international monitoring in Ukraine and Crimea.
Russia has proposed a new federal system in Ukraine that would give its eastern and southern regions broad autonomy over economic and other matters. The Ukrainian government has rejected the Russian proposals as a back-door way to seize control of portions of the country beyond Crimea.
Will Englund in Moscow and Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño in Washington contributed to this report.
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