LONDON, Sep 03, AFP-BNS – NATO must strengthen its defense ofthe three Baltic countries after Russia’s assault on Georgia, the new US envoy to NATO said in an interview published on Wednesday.
Speaking to the Financial Times in Brussels after an emergency summit of European Union leaders there, Kurt Volker said it was important that NATO remained “credible.”
“Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries we will all respond,” Volker told the business daily.
“They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighbouring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit.”
Volker said NATO must send signals that it intends to help the Baltic states, and uphold its Article 5, which guarantees the defense of each signatory by all the rest.
“We will have to make sure … that the Article 5 commitment is realizable not just as a political matter but as a military matter too,” the American envoy said.
He continued: “We need to do what NATO ought to do, not in a provocative way and not in a rushed or hasty way. But NATO being credible is what’s important.”
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the US proposal was under discussion by NATO states and was expected to be a topic for NATO defence ministers when they hold a informal meeting in London on Sept. 18.
“I think he has reflected a sentiment that is more widely shared within the alliance,” Appathurai told a news briefing.
The spokesman said he was not aware of any request from the Baltic states for more visible NATO deployments, but they had sought more routine defence planning.
“There has been an exchange of views as to whether or not it is necessary to do it in a routine way or if we were faced as an alliance with a particular situation,” he said.
Appathurai said NATO had full capability to provide collective defense for its members. “NATO clearly has the capability to do it and do it very quickly,” he said.
AFP – Baltic News Service