Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
October 3, 2008
Pg. 14
By Marc Champion
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization won't give Georgia and Ukraine a road map to membership at a meeting later this year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Kiev took a step away from the West and closer to Moscow, as Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced gas deals with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and voiced support for Russian accession to the World Trade Organization.
Mrs. Merkel's rejection of a NATO track for Georgia and Ukraine, at a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg, would effectively act as a veto. The Western military alliance operates by consensus.
U.S. officials had hoped a NATO ministerial meeting set for December might be the occasion for the alliance to extend a so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, to the two ex-Soviet States. However, any quick move toward their NATO membership grew less likely after Georgia's five-day war with Russia in August.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen or heard Mrs. Merkel's remarks.
Russia opposes NATO expansion to include more countries of the ex-Soviet Union beyond the three Baltic states that joined the U.S.-led alliance in 2004. Russian leaders have claimed Georgia's NATO aspirations encouraged it to take military action that triggered the August invasion. Georgia and Western nations have called Russia the aggressor.
Georgian Integration Minister Temuri Yakobashvili said it would have been better for Mrs. Merkel to wait to make her decision in December, and base it on NATO's reports on Georgia's progress toward meeting the alliance's criteria for MAP. "This is becoming a highly politicized, rather than a technical, performance-based decision," he said.
Mrs. Merkel also opposed MAP for Georgia and Ukraine before the alliance's last summit in April, where NATO members split, despite efforts by President George W. Bush to persuade reluctant European NATO leaders to back the plan. As a result, no road map was offered, but the decision was to be reviewed in December.
Georgian and some U.S. officials believe NATO's failure in April to show clear commitment to Georgia encouraged Moscow to prepare Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two Russian-controlled separatist territories within Georgia, for independence during the summer -- and then to invade. Russia says it attacked in response to a Georgian attempt at genocide against South Ossetian civilians.
Membership in NATO can come as long as a decade after the start of MAP. But Mrs. Merkel argued ahead of the April summit that the move would provoke Russia unnecessarily, and that so long as Georgia had two open territorial disputes it wasn't a suitable NATO member. NATO guarantees it will defend members of the alliance when necessary.
Moscow has been just as determined in opposing efforts by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to lead his country into NATO. Since the Georgia conflict, Mr. Yushchenko's pro-Western coalition with his political rival Prime Minister Tymoshenko has disintegrated, damping hopes of NATO accession.
Ms. Tymoshenko has taken a much softer line toward Moscow than Mr. Yushchenko and has declined to criticize Russian actions. In Moscow Thursday, she secured a deal with Mr. Putin on natural gas supplies to Ukraine.
While details were unclear, Ms. Tymoshenko said the two sides had agreed to set a three-year transition for Russia to raise the price at which it sells gas to Ukraine to world-market levels, according to news agency reports. Ukraine now pays less than half the global market price for gas.
Nevertheless, tensions persist between Kiev and Moscow. Mr. Putin on Thursday again accused Ukrainian personnel of manning guns that shot down Russian aircraft during the war in Georgia.
--Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.
October 3, 2008
Pg. 14
By Marc Champion
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization won't give Georgia and Ukraine a road map to membership at a meeting later this year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Kiev took a step away from the West and closer to Moscow, as Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced gas deals with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and voiced support for Russian accession to the World Trade Organization.
Mrs. Merkel's rejection of a NATO track for Georgia and Ukraine, at a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg, would effectively act as a veto. The Western military alliance operates by consensus.
U.S. officials had hoped a NATO ministerial meeting set for December might be the occasion for the alliance to extend a so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, to the two ex-Soviet States. However, any quick move toward their NATO membership grew less likely after Georgia's five-day war with Russia in August.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen or heard Mrs. Merkel's remarks.
Russia opposes NATO expansion to include more countries of the ex-Soviet Union beyond the three Baltic states that joined the U.S.-led alliance in 2004. Russian leaders have claimed Georgia's NATO aspirations encouraged it to take military action that triggered the August invasion. Georgia and Western nations have called Russia the aggressor.
Georgian Integration Minister Temuri Yakobashvili said it would have been better for Mrs. Merkel to wait to make her decision in December, and base it on NATO's reports on Georgia's progress toward meeting the alliance's criteria for MAP. "This is becoming a highly politicized, rather than a technical, performance-based decision," he said.
Mrs. Merkel also opposed MAP for Georgia and Ukraine before the alliance's last summit in April, where NATO members split, despite efforts by President George W. Bush to persuade reluctant European NATO leaders to back the plan. As a result, no road map was offered, but the decision was to be reviewed in December.
Georgian and some U.S. officials believe NATO's failure in April to show clear commitment to Georgia encouraged Moscow to prepare Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two Russian-controlled separatist territories within Georgia, for independence during the summer -- and then to invade. Russia says it attacked in response to a Georgian attempt at genocide against South Ossetian civilians.
Membership in NATO can come as long as a decade after the start of MAP. But Mrs. Merkel argued ahead of the April summit that the move would provoke Russia unnecessarily, and that so long as Georgia had two open territorial disputes it wasn't a suitable NATO member. NATO guarantees it will defend members of the alliance when necessary.
Moscow has been just as determined in opposing efforts by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to lead his country into NATO. Since the Georgia conflict, Mr. Yushchenko's pro-Western coalition with his political rival Prime Minister Tymoshenko has disintegrated, damping hopes of NATO accession.
Ms. Tymoshenko has taken a much softer line toward Moscow than Mr. Yushchenko and has declined to criticize Russian actions. In Moscow Thursday, she secured a deal with Mr. Putin on natural gas supplies to Ukraine.
While details were unclear, Ms. Tymoshenko said the two sides had agreed to set a three-year transition for Russia to raise the price at which it sells gas to Ukraine to world-market levels, according to news agency reports. Ukraine now pays less than half the global market price for gas.
Nevertheless, tensions persist between Kiev and Moscow. Mr. Putin on Thursday again accused Ukrainian personnel of manning guns that shot down Russian aircraft during the war in Georgia.
--Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.