A.F. Rasmussen and Dmitry Medvedev

"Landep News"

Russia-NATO Relations

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen met at the resort in Sochi, by the seaside of the Black Sea, on Monday and discussed matters of mutual concern.

Rasmussen also met South African President Jacob Zuma, who is visiting Russia with a mandate from the African Union to negotiate a peaceful settlement in Libya.

According to the Russian media, Russia and NATO did not come to a common point of view on NATO’s principle of military intervention, which the Russians say NATO interprets any way they want.

The differences are linked to the way Russia and NATO view the air campaign on Libya.

Rasmussen defended the intervention of NATO in Libya, whereas Russia manifested its dissatisfaction with the disclosure made by French military last week, who said that they dropped ammunition and weapons to the rebels in Libya.

Russia did not vote in the U.N. Security Council in favor of allowing NATO to bomb the military infrastructure of the regime in Tripoli.

Some Libyan government sources said that they were involved in negotiations with the rebels, including the Transitional Council in Benghazi.

However, one of Qaddafi’s sons warned that his family would not leave Libya, nor would they surrender.

A.F. Rasmussen and Dmitry Medvedev

In turn, leaders of the Transitional Council announced that those in their ranks who had advanced the possibility of allowing the Qaddafis to continue living in Libya were speaking for themselves, and not on the record.

President of Russia took the opportunity of the meeting with the NATO secretary general to slam the allegations made by the president of Romania, a member country of NATO, who had said that the position of Marshal Antonescu (Romanian dictator and Supreme Commander of Royal Joint Forces during WWII), he would have done the same thing (that is order the Royal Romanian troops to advance into former Soviet Union’s territory in order to free the eastern territories of Romania, claimed by the Soviet a year earlier).

Since Russia is the legal inheritor of the Soviet Union, and in Russian historiography that historical episofe is considered an aggression (especially since the Romanian army went into Soviet territory along with the army of the Third Reich), the reckless words of the Romanian president stirred a wave of indignation in Kremlin, and a brutal reaction of Russian diplomacy.

Analysts consider Russia may even use them as some sort of leverage in future negotiations with NATO.

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