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Albright reaffirms: NATO not enemy of Russia
Feb 7, 2010, 10:32 GMT
Munich - Russia has nothing to fear from NATO, officials of the defence alliance reiterated Sunday at the Munich Security Conference in the face of continued Russian concern about the alliance's expansion plans.
'(NATO) is not against a country, it is for a concept,' said Madeleine Albright, a former US secretary of state who is heading a panel on NATO reform.
'NATO was an alliance against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union no longer exists.'
Several Russian officials have voiced concerns during the weekend conference that NATO's expansion to Russia's western border represents a threat.
But Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the Russian Duma's International Affairs Committee, said the fact that NATO continues to reach out to Eastern European nations is unsettling.
'NATO is not the problem in this concept. The problem is the enlargement, the artificial enlargement, the politicized enlargement,' said Kosachev. 'The process by which NATO develops is very important for us.'
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