NATO to Rebuff Russian Bid for Separate Treaty, Officials Say
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By James G. Neuger
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- NATO is likely to rebuff a Russian proposal for a bilateral security treaty, seeing it as a ploy to regain lost influence over eastern Europe, four allied officials said.
Russia’s proposed treaty, limited to the trans-Atlantic alliance’s 28 members, would require them to “perform defense planning in a way that it does not threaten the security of other parties,” according to a three-page draft obtained by Bloomberg News.
The initiative marks a Russian bid to assert its primacy over countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and to halt the Brussels-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s expansion. The proposal, made last month, would have effectively given Russia a veto over allied military planning, especially in eastern Europe, said the officials, who declined to be named because the alliance hasn’t issued a formal response.
“It’s a way of trying to put into treaty an acceptance of a Russian sphere of influence,” said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who is now managing director of Johns Hopkins University’s trans-Atlantic relations center in Washington. “It essentially gives Russia a veto over countries that are not yet members of NATO.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov handed the proposed “Agreement on Basic Principles Governing Relations Among NATO- Russia Council Member States in Security Sphere” in Russian and English versions to allied officials without publicity at a NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels Dec. 4
NATO-Russia Cooperation
While NATO aims to boost cooperation with Russia on the war in Afghanistan, fighting piracy and stemming nuclear proliferation, there is little appetite for a new treaty, said the four NATO officials.
“The allies and Russia have just started a period of intensive debate on the future of the NATO-Russia Council and many ideas are going to be voiced,” said Carmen Romero, a NATO spokeswoman. “Minister Lavrov shared some ideas in December.”
Asked if NATO-Russia ties need a new legal basis, the alliance’s supreme military commander, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, said his focus is on practical steps such as expanding the supply lines through Russia for the 100,000-plus western troops in Afghanistan.
“I can see a variety of zones of cooperation -- military to military -- and of course we’re waiting for political signals and guidance from the secretary general before we pursue that, but overall I think we’re on an upward trend in our relations with Russia,” Stavridis said in a Jan. 13 interview.
Obama ‘Reset’
The Lavrov paper, coming as President Barack Obama seeks to “reset” relations with the Kremlin, is distinct from a wider East-West security treaty also floated last year by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Western governments have been cool to the Medvedev initiative, a product of the Kremlin’s desire to overhaul European security arrangements after NATO’s eastward enlargement put western troops on Russia’s borders.
“There can be no doubt whatsoever that NATO will remain our framework for Euro-Atlantic security,” Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last month.
NATO absorbed former Soviet allies starting in 1999, when a Russia shorn of its Cold War satellites was struggling to regain its economic footing after defaulting on $40 billion of debt.
Under Vladimir Putin since 2000, energy-rich Russia has seized on an oil price that peaked at $147 per barrel in July 2008 to revive its economy and gain leverage over oil- and gas- importing states in Europe.
Russia pushed back against further NATO enlargement by invading western-leaning Georgia in August 2008 and trying to reassert control over Ukraine, which held the first round of presidential elections yesterday.
No Choice
Russia’s neighbors, including Georgia and Ukraine, would be left out of the bilateral treaty, which omits language from prior post-Cold War accords that all countries are entitled to choose their alliances.
Putin has accused NATO of violating a 1998 pledge not to permanently station “substantial combat forces” on former Warsaw Pact territory. The new treaty would potentially allow Russia to weigh in on NATO defense policies such as the air policing mission over the three Baltic republics, once part of the Soviet Union.
NATO has pointed to the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an East-West forum created in 1975, as the best arena for discussing Russia’s security concerns.
To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 17, 2010 18:01 EST
