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New members shift NATO to Russia's borders
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-03-30 08:47
U.S. President Bush ushered seven eastern European allies into
NATO on Monday as "full and equal partners," and appealed to the alliance
for unity in Iraq and the war on terror after the Madrid bombings.
The prime ministers of the seven new
NATO member countries stand prior to presenting their credentials to
US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the US Treasury Department in
Washington, DC. [Reuters] |
The entry of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and
Slovenia increased the number of NATO members to 26, but the expansion could
slow deployments and has angered Russia by shifting the 55-year-old
transatlantic alliance to its borders.
"Today our alliance faces a new enemy, which has brought death to innocent
people from New York to Madrid. Terrorists hate everything this alliance stands
for. They despise our freedom, they fear our unity, they seek to divide us. They
will fail. We will not be divided," Bush said.
Bush, criticized for paying scant attention to alliance-building, said the
seven new NATO entrants were already "allies in action" because they aided the
United States in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They understand our cause in Afghanistan and Iraq because tyranny for them
is still a fresh memory," Bush told the nations' prime ministers at a South Lawn
ceremony after they formally handed over their accession documents.
 |
U.S. President George W. Bush (C) is
applauded as he speaks before the prime ministers of seven former Soviet
bloc nations on their final step to joining NATO during a ceremony on
the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC.
[AFP]
| "Today they stand with us as full and
equal partners in this great alliance."
In an immediate reflection of the shift eastward of an alliance forged to
fight the Cold War, NATO fighter jets headed to the Baltics under a plan to
begin regular patrols, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said. The Baltic
states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were republics in the former Soviet
Union, NATO's Cold War foe, until the Soviet breakup in 1991.
Russia protested the patrols and a parliamentary deputy said Moscow may
respond with "corresponding measures."
Despite fears the enlargement could hamper timely deployments because of
NATO's need for consensus on military action, Bush said he also supported the
ambitions of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to one day join the alliance. "The
door to NATO will remain open," he added.
Bush's appeal for unity follows the deadly Madrid train bombings on March 11.
Spain's new leader has pledged to pull his country's 1,300 troops out of Iraq
unless the United Nations is given much greater control there by the end of
June.
The new members exulted in joining an organization which ensures military
protection to the 26 nations.
"Today, it is really fantastic day for Slovakia. ... I consider this a very
big success," Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan told Reuters.
Forty percent of NATO will now be former communist states, and Washington has
welcomed them as a counterweight to the "old Europe" of France and Germany, who
opposed the Iraq war.
A Russian parliamentary deputy dismissed the Washington ceremony as a "show."
Konstantin Kosachev, representative of a Russian parliamentary committee on
international affairs, said a NATO plan to patrol Baltic airspace was an
"unfriendly" move. Estonia and Latvia border Russia, while Lithuania has a
frontier with Moscow's Kaliningrad enclave.
"It can not be ruled out that Russia ought to look at the possibility of
taking corresponding measures," he said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said "The main thing
that could improve the state of European security is a fundamental change in the
very nature of NATO... including a joint fight against new and real threats and
challenges."
Monday's expansion has brought NATO nearer to the Balkans, the south
Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia, all potential breeding grounds for
the West's post-Sept. 11 enemies: terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass
destruction.
But the expansion could hinder NATO's ability to respond quickly to such
threats because of its consensus decision-making.
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