President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday NATO's promise to extend membership to Georgia was unjust, humiliating and intolerable to Russia.
Adds quotes, details)
By Janet McBride
MOSCOW, Sept 12 (Reuters) – President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday NATO’s promise to extend membership to Georgia was unjust, humiliating and intolerable to Russia.
Likening Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Medvedev said he would have acted equally decisively in sending in Russian forces, even if Tbilisi already had a firm path to NATO entry.
By extending a promise of future membership to Georgia and Ukraine, NATO had illustrated a willingness to take in two malfunctioning states simply to get closer to Russia’s borders, Medvedev told foreign reporters during a three-hour briefing.
“NATO won’t become stronger this way, global tensions won’t be reduced. What if Georgia had a NATO membership action plan? I would not wait for a second in making the decision I made at that time. What would the consequences be?”
“They could be much worse.”
NATO’s pact provides for the defence of member states against aggression. The membership action plan does not provide the same protection, but member states may nevertheless feel obliged to become involved.
Georgian membership would be a destabilising factor, both for the Western military alliance and for the volatile Caucasus region, Medvedev said in an impassioned presentation to the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, which groups Russia experts.#
“The situation is not fair to Russia, it is humiliating to Russia and we are not going to tolerate this any longer.”
He said Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia and the West’s failure to back Russia had exposed as an illusion any lingering belief in Russia that the world was a just place.
“The world has changed. Almost immediately after the events in the Caucasus it occurred to me that August 8 was for us almost what 9/11 was for the United States.”
“The United States and the whole of humanity drew many lessons from September 11, 2001. I would like to see August 8, 2008 result in many useful lessons as well.”
Respect for international law, a more effective global security system and a shift away from U.S. dominance of international diplomacy were among the goals he listed.
Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and many other Russian officials have publicly accused Washington of emboldening Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to attack the breakaway region of South Ossetia last month.
Russia responded by sending in its tanks. Hundreds died and tens of thousands were displaced in the five-day war.
The Russian president balanced his remarks by saying he did not believe the Caucasus crisis had caused a faultline in relations between Russia and the West, which would lead to another long period of confrontation.
“We don’t need this,” he said. (Editing by Keith Weir)
