Posts Tagged “NATO”
Source: Yahoo! News
Russia has informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, Norway’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday, a day after the military alliance urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia.
NATO foreign ministers said Tuesday they would make further ties with Russia dependent on Moscow making good on a pledge to pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions in Georgia. However, they stopped short of calling an immediate halt to all cooperation.
The Nordic country’s embassy in Moscow received a telephone call from “a well-placed official in the Russian Ministry of Defense,” who said Moscow plans “to freeze all military cooperation with NATO and allied countries,” Espen Barth Eide, state secretary with the Norwegian ministry said.
Eide told The Associated Press that the Russian official notified Norway it will receive a written note about this soon. He said Norwegian diplomats in Moscow would meet Russian officials on Thursday morning to clarify the implications of the freeze.
“It is our understanding that other NATO countries will receive similar notes,” Eide said. The ministry said the Russian official is known to the embassy, but Norway declined to provide a name or any further identifying information.
A Kremlin official declined to comment on the report, and the Russian ambassador to NATO did not reply to messages left on his cell phone. But the Interfax news agency, citing what it called a military-diplomatic source in Moscow whom it did not identify, reported that Russia is reviewing its 2008 military cooperation plans with NATO.
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Yep, a new cold war is brewing…
Source: The Guardian
The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, yesterday issued a direct challenge to Moscow’s sway over Georgia, pledging Washington’s support for its eventual membership of Nato, while denouncing Russia’s “illegitimate” invasion. “Georgia will be in our alliance,” Cheney said after talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili.
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The US challenge was undermined by the collapse of Ukraine’s pro-western coalition on the eve of Cheney’s arrival in Kiev at the end of his three-country trip yesterday. The crisis threatened to derail President Viktor Yushchenko’s efforts to win Ukraine Nato and EU membership.
Cheney made clear however that it would not shake Washington’s deep involvement in the region, now focused on Georgia after last month’s conflict with Russia over South Ossetia.
Shrugging off Russian recognition of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he declared the Bush administration’s “strong commitment to Georgia’s territorial integrity”. The US would stand with Georgia, he said, “as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory and an illegitimate attempt to change your country’s borders by force”.
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Source: CNN.com
 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says it is weighing its options following the arrival of more NATO vessels in the Black Sea, according to reports.
Russia Monday accused “foreign navy ships” of delivering weapons to Georgia as the European Union met to discuss possible sanctions against Moscow.
Putin, visiting Uzbekistan to promote the launch of a natural gas pipeline Tuesday, said that its response to ships would be “calm, without any sort of hysteria. But of course, there will be an answer,” the Associated Press reported.
Georgian troops attacked pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia on August 7, triggering the Russian response. Each side offered conflicting figures on how many people died in the fighting.
Russia has not fully withdrawn its troops from Georgia after sending them across the border for what it called peacekeeping operations and what Georgia called an invasion.
Putin also questioned Tuesday the manner in which the United States had delivered humanitarian aid to Georgia.
“We don’t understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores, but this is a question of taste, it’s a decision by our American colleagues,” agencies reported Putin as saying.
“The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems.”
Earlier Tuesday Russian officials criticized the European Union for threatening to postpone talks on a new political and economic partnership deal.
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Source: This is London
Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a “declaration of war” by Russia.
The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.
And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.
Enlarge Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - the ‘real architect’ of the Georgia conflict - and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - the ‘real architect’ of the Georgia conflict - and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday
The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.
“If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,” he stated.
Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.
Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.
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Source: guardian.co.uk
US and Russian warships took up positions in the Black Sea today in a risky war of nerves on opposing sides of the Georgia conflict.
With the Russians effectively controlling Georgia’s main naval base of Poti, Moscow also dispatched the Moskva missile cruiser and two smaller craft on “peacekeeping” duties at the port of Sukhumi on the coast of Abkhazia, the breakaway region that the Kremlin recognised as independent yesterday.
The Americans, wary of escalating an already fraught situation, cancelled the scheduled docking in Poti of the US Coast Guard vessel, the Dallas, and instead sent it to the southern Georgian-controlled port of Batumi, 200km (124 miles) from the Russian ships, where it delivered humanitarian aid.
“Let’s hope we don’t see any direct confrontation,” said Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as the Russians challenged the US policy of using military aircraft and ships to deliver relief supplies.
“The decision to deliver aid using Nato battleships is something that hardly can be explained,” said Peskov. “It’s not a common practice.”
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