02 December 2008
United States Backs Gradual Resumption of NATO-Russia Relations
Membership plans for Georgia, Ukraine discussed
Washington — The United States has no objection to a gradual, phased re-engagement between NATO and Russia, a relationship that had been suspended since the Russian-Georgia crisis in August, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“The idea of working through a kind of informal contact, with the NATO-Russia Council, is not a problem for us,” Rice said at a December 2 press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Rice was at NATO for a regularly scheduled foreign ministers conference December 2–3. However, she plans to leave the ministerial meetings early to travel to India to confer with Indian officials and express U.S. condolences for the loss of lives following a terrorist attack in Mumbai.
“I think that the secretary-general will report back to the NAC [North Atlantic Council] before any formal program of engagement with Russia ... is put into place,” Rice said. “This isn't an issue of isolating Russia, but it is an issue of what kinds of contacts are appropriate. And I think this is a completely appropriate thing for the alliance to do.”
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the foreign ministers agreed to a gradual resumption of contacts with Russia. “Allies agreed on what I would qualify as a conditional and graduated re-engagement with Russia,” he said.
Rice said an informal meeting of NATO ambassadors with Russian officials is not the same thing as an extended and carefully planned meeting, which was characteristic of the NATO-Russia Council.
While the NATO foreign ministers did not decide to offer membership plans to Georgia or Ukraine at this meeting because the timing was not right, Rice said that formal plans for extending membership are still important to the United States and its alliance allies, and they will be discussed at future ministerial meetings and the 60th Anniversary NATO Summit in April 2009 on the Rhine River in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany.
Rice said the terms for future membership were set at the 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, and the eventual membership of Georgia and Ukraine will remain important.
“I think we all want to concentrate on helping to solidify and consolidate their democratic governments,” she said. One major source of assistance from NATO will be the NATO-Georgia and NATO-Ukraine commissions, she said.
