Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Konuzin has stated that there is no reason for NATO’s further expansion because it will create new divisions.
“Expansion policy of NATO, which represents not only a political but also a military alliance, creates new lines of division and it’s a question of security for us,†he told Novi Sad-based daily Dnevnik.
NATO’s Military Committee has been meeting in Brussels to develop the alliance’s New Strategic Concept. This included discussion of NATO-Russia work plans.
Anti-terrorism was on the agenda, in the wake of the Moscow airport bombing, in which dozens were killed and many wounded. Moscow has also called for cyber-defense cooperation for the first time.
A cluster bomb clearing operation will start in the southern Serbian municipalities of PreÅ¡evo and Bujanovac in March, it has been announced. The bombs were dropped in the area by NATO’s warplanes, as the alliance attacked the country in the spring of 1999.
A London newspaper has published leaked NATO documents that describe Kosovo Albanian PM as one of the “biggest fish” in organized crime in Kosovo. The Guardian has published the article on the day the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is debating a draft resolution based on Dick Marty’s report on human organ trafficking in Kosovo, and Albania, writes the BBC.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that a partition of Kosovo is not considered as an option by the international community.
He underlined that the future Kosovo institutions should pursue a responsible and moderate policy.
NATO says there will be no letup in fighting during the winter in Afghanistan, VOA reports. A spokesman for NATO’S International Security Assistance Force, German General Josef Blotz, says NATO will maintain pressure on the Taliban during the winter months when fighting traditionally eases.
The goal is to use cloud systems to promote data sharing and cost efficiency among NATO’s 28 nation-state members. – IBM has a big new international project
on its agenda as of Dec. 22.
Big Blue is going to show the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) how
best to migrate wildly disparate computer systems to cloud computing, and the
plan is for NATO to, in turn, take that information and promote more da…
Former Chief Hague Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the Swiss Le Temps newspaper that NATO was an ally of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Her compatriot Dick Marty, the Swiss senator appointed as CoE rapporteur, last week unveiled a damning report linking KLA to kidnappings of Serbs and other civilians in Kosovo and black market trade in their body parts.
Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry says a NATO air strike killed four Afghan soldiers on Dec. 15 in southern Afghanistan, apparently mistaking them for insurgents. Defense Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the soldiers had left their base in Musa Qala district, in Helmand Province, when they came under fire from NATO planes.
Six foreign soldiers have been killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says.
The incident happened on Sunday, ISAF said in a statement.
The US and NATO have drawn up plans to defend NATO’s Baltic members against Russia, latest US diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks show, BBC reports.
The cables, published in the Guardian, reveal plans to expand an existing strategy to defend Poland to include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
NATO says an explosion has killed two of its troops outside a military base in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan authorities say Sunday’s blast in the city of Gardez killed two other people and wounded several more.
A gunman in an Afghan police uniform has killed six service members in eastern Afghanistan, NATO forces say. The BBC reports that the man turned his weapon on the troops during a training mission, said NATO. He was also killed in the incident in Nangarhar province.
Russia will let NATO take armored vehicles to Afghanistan and return supplies through its territory under an expanded transit deal, RFE/RL reports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the announcement at a joint meeting in Moscow with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul.
There were smiles and handshakes in Lisbon, but the road ahead is bumpy
BARACK OBAMA’S satisfaction on leaving NATO’s two-day summit in Lisbon on November 20th was palpable. After his “shellacking” at the hands of the voters and a tour of Asia that yielded little in the way of positive results, the embattled president found Europe’s leaders going out of their way to show solidarity. Even Russia presented a smiling face at the summit. But for all the pleasing mood music, more jarring notes are in prospect for the alliance.
Take the “reset” of NATO’s relations with its traditional foe, Russia. Much was made of the decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to come to Lisbon. Mr Medvedev was happy to agree that terrorism, piracy, illegal drugs and nuclear proliferation were all threats that NATO and Russia should confront together. He also offered some practical, non-military help in Afghanistan and tentatively accepted the offer to co-operate on the territorial ballistic-missile defence system that NATO members have decided will now go ahead. The alliance’s general-secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, summed it up: “We have agreed together on which security challenges NATO nations and Russia actually face today. What’s most significant is what’s not on the list: each other.” …
NATO welcomed at its summit in Lisbon Serbia’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration and the increasing cooperation between the Alliance and Serbia. “We welcome, and continue to support, the Government of Serbia’s stated commitment to Serbia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. We welcome the increasing cooperation between NATO and Serbia.”
NATO nations have approved a plan to start pulling out front-line troops from Afghanistan early in 2011.
However, forces will remain in the most dangerous areas until 2014, and likely stay in a supporting role beyond then.
Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Å utanovac said Sunday that the Serbian security system was receiving positive comments both in the East and the West.
This indicates that the system and the work of the Defense Ministry “are highly regarded in the context of both Serbia’s immediate and broader European surroundings,” he added.
Serbia needs to find its path and everything depends on it. But as far as Croatia is concerned Serbia is welcome in NATO, Croatian President Ivo Josipović said.
As a fully fledged member of NATO Croatia had its say in adoption of NATO’s new strategy, Zagreb-based daily Jutarnji list reports.
