Those who want to return to Cold War times take upper hand in NATO — Russian envoy

Those who want to return to Cold War times and attain tighter consolidation of the NATO states over Article 5 of the Treaty of Washington are taking upper hand in the alliance. Article 5 of the Treaty of Washington is the basis for NATO fundamental principle of collective defense.

“This is a major misconception. Lessons of Kosovo, Iraq and Libya will not be forgotten.”“A too harsh response to our questions over AWACS flights, double intensity of air patrolling over the Baltic states, intensification of military and aircraft activity at an airbase in the Polish city of Lask, assistance to “the government of winners” in Kiev exposes fully the architects of this campaign,” Russian Ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko told Kommersant daily, adding: “It looks like someone in NATO really believes that the alliance is a source of political legitimacy [as NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in his recent speech] and therefore any NATO actions are correct by definition and cannot be discussed."

Commenting on the newspaper’s question on suspension of NATO cooperation with Russia on the scope of already launched projects, particularly Afghanistan, the Russian permanent representative noted: “After the functioning of dialogue mechanisms in the Russia-NATO Council were suspended, we did not discuss cooperation on Afghanistan. We will decide ourselves how to assist to the Afghans in bilateral ties and in cooperation with other international organizations and partners.”Recently it was reported that NATO representatives do not rule out that additional military forces, particularly a 4,500-strong brigade from the US military base Fort Hood, may be deployed in Eastern European countries. Alexander Grushko believes that this “would definitely ruin the system of commitments for military deterrence that are fixed in the Russia-NATO basic act. Certainly, if these steps are taken, they will require from us tougher security measures.”