Rather than America's, NATO Ministers
Prefer to Sing their Own Tune
"Attempts
by Washington to turn a regular meeting of Alliance foreign ministers into a
comeuppance for Russia 'over Georgia,' haven't had the desired effect. …
Condoleezza Rice is already largely removed from the fateful decisions about
the world."
On Tuesday, a heated
discussion took place in Brussels over what to do with Georgia and Ukraine.
However, the topic of admitting these countries to the ranks of the North
Atlantic Alliance clearly receded into the background. Of far more concern to
the 26 heads of foreign ministries was the future relationship with Russia.
Especially when one considers that at the same time, in the same Brussels, as
the locomotive of Russian-European relations was being actively pushed forward,
in Helsinki preparations were underway for discussions of a Russian initiative
along the same lines but in regard to another organization - the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]
- for the establishment of a new European security system.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Attempts by Washington to
turn a regular meeting of Alliance foreign ministers into a comeuppance for
Russia "over Georgia," haven't had the desired effect. On the
sidelines of the meeting, one heard jokes on the topic of the musical exorcism
of Condoleezza Rice [reference to Secretary Rice's piano recital for the British Queen -
see video, below] - who is already largely removed from the fateful
decisions about the world. Therefore, statements by the Secretary of State that she
was against military cooperation with Russia weren't taken very seriously.
Condoleezza Rice, accompanied by Louise Miliband,
wife of
Britain's foreign minister, plays piano
for the British Queen.
Her main protégés - the
Ukrainians and Georgians - nursed no great illusions, either: they were given
to understand that they shouldn't count on the provision of a NATO Membership
Action Plan (MAP). And although there were 18 variations on the final
resolution of the meeting, which will end on Wednesday, even David Miliband, the head of the [British] Foreign Office so
famous for his radical judgments, was friendly. "We have no disagreements
on Ukraine and Georgia," he said, bearing in mind the lack of a near-term
MAP for these countries.
Meanwhile, Russia sent the
alliance "a signal of willingness to reestablish cooperation"
embodied in its new military representative to NATO - General Alexei Maslov, who arrived in Brussels on Tuesday. It's still
unknown in what format cooperation will be reestablished, but interest in it
was shown by many participants at the meeting. For instance, Italy's minister
of foreign affairs, Franco Frattini, called NATO's
relationship with Russia the key to European security.
