Russian President Vladimir Putin was to hold an unprecedented meeting with NATO leaders yesterday amid deep divisions over the alliance’s expansion but possible common ground in Afghanistan.
Putin was to deliver an address during their summit in Bucharest with expectations high that he would invite the alliance to use Russia for transit to the war in Afghanistan. The former KGB officer, who is due to move to the prime minister’s post next month after eight years in the Kremlin, is the alliance’s most bitter critic, particularly over eastward expansion into the former Soviet bloc.
He won a victory even before arriving on Thursday when after months of Russian pressure NATO declined to give Membership Action Plan (MAP) status to former Soviet Georgia and Ukraine.
Putin had threatened to target nuclear missiles at Ukraine if the country joined the alliance and his angry rhetoric helped cause a public split in NATO.
Almost 20 years after the humiliating Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia could open its territory to NATO supply convoys, providing the alliance with a potentially big boost in its own struggle to defeat Islamist guerrillas.
“We hope that tomorrow’s meeting ... will have as one of the results the land transportation agreement of non-lethal goods for [NATO] in Afghanistan,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary-general.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, also attending the Bucharest summit, appeared to confirm that agreement was imminent.
NATO supplies currently reach Afghanistan by air or across the hazardous Pakistan border.
Russia and NATO members have repeatedly denied suggestions of a deal where Georgia and Ukraine would be sacrificed in return for a deal on Afghanistan access.
In a compromise solution that allowed all sides to claim victory, NATO told
the two former Soviet republics that they were not getting immediate MAP status but could be sure of membership at some point in the future.
Despite the row over expansion, NATO leaders and Putin appear keen to realign their rocky relations before Dmitry Medvedev takes over as Russian president on May 7.
Another major sticking point — a planned US missile shield in central Europe — was to be discussed at a separate summit between Putin and US President George W. Bush in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi this weekend.
In a sign of will to cooperate, NATO said on Thursday it was “ready to explore the potential” for linking US, NATO and Russia’s own missile defense systems in a unified network.
But the push for reconciliation did not mean that the principal problems were entirely resolved.
NATO may have kept Georgia and Ukraine out of the MAP scheme for now, but strong US lobbying meant that the door remains wide open for the future.
“We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO,” Scheffer said.
Giorgi Baramidze, Georgia’s minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, described that statement as a “historic” breakthrough for his country, while Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko also hailed a “victory.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warned of “a big strategic mistake” if NATO embraced Georgia and Ukraine, and “most serious consequences for common European security.”
Russia and Afghanistan do not share a common border, so completing the transit link would require lining up one of the Central Asian former Soviet republics.
This could be Uzbekistan, which has been internationally isolated since a bloody crackdown on protestors in Andijan in 2005.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov who has exiled all opponents and is accused of condoning torture, also attended Thursday’s NATO talks on Afghanistan, and gave a talk to NATO allies over lunch, Scheffer said.
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