German Chancellor Angela Merkel and visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg review military honors in Berlin on Jan. 14. (Maurizio Gambarini / European Pressphoto Agency)
An interim force of German, Norwegian and Dutch troops
stands ready to respond to any security threat from the east, NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday.
The new "high-readiness spearhead force" is in
place for 2015, Stoltenberg said after calling on Russia to respect the
sanctity of postwar borders in Europe and the core values on which the
continent's democracies are based.
It was Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula 10
months ago that prompted the Western defense alliance to create the force
capable of responding quickly to any threat to one of the bloc's 28 member
states.
Stoltenberg did not disclose
the number of troops assigned to the NATO Response Force, which for the current
year will be headquartered in Muenster, Germany.
NATO aspires for a more constructive and cooperative
relationship with Russia. But to be able to establish that, Russia must want it
too.
FOR THE RECORD
Jan. 15, 8:35 a.m.: An earlier version of this article
stated that the rapid-reaction force was already deployed to Eastern Europe
states. Troops remain at their national bases.
The ultimate size of the force will be "several
thousand troops" able to respond within a few days to any attack or
security threat, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.
NATO grapples with how hard to push back against Putin over
Ukraine
Ukraine is not a member of NATO and it pledged in 2010 to
remain nonaligned. The Ukrainian parliament retracted that position late last
year in a signal that it intends eventually to apply for alliance membership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is staunchly opposed to
what he sees as NATO encroachment into Moscow's traditional sphere of
influence. He is also clearly displeased with Ukraine's moves toward eventual
membership in the European Union. It was after a Kremlin-allied Ukrainian president,
Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted by a pro-European rebellion that Russian troops
seized Crimea and Russian arms and mercenaries began flowing into eastern
Ukraine.
The Baltics and NATO
Troops from Latvia, one of the former Soviet Baltic
republics hosting NATO rapid-response forces, prepare for live-fire exercises
at a base near Riga, the Latvian capital, on Nov. 21. (Ilmars Znotins /
AFP/Getty Images)
Putin denies Russia is involved in the fighting in Ukraine
that has killed more than 4,700 people in nine months, and he has justified the
"reunion" of Crimea with the Russian federation as correcting a
historical wrong. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev deeded the territory that is
home to the Russian Black Sea fleet to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
in 1954.
Stoltenberg alluded to "the challenges we are facing to
the east" during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"We see that international law is violated, and that
the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not respected. And
we call on Russia to respect the Minsk agreements," Stoltenberg said.
Poland, torn between Germany and Russia for many years, got
screwed by all the post WW2 treaties. first president who worked directly with
Poland was Ronald Reagan.
CYNICALPEDESTRIAN
AT 9:16 AM JANUARY 15, 2015
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He was referring to the Sept. 5 cease-fire signed in Minsk,
the capital of Belarus, by Russia and Ukraine that set out a plan for halting
artillery fire, withdrawing heavy weaponry, freezing the front lines and
exchanging prisoners. The agreement has been repeatedly violated and few of its
provisions fulfilled beyond a recent exchange of about 370 captives.
"I underline very much that NATO does not seek
confrontation with Russia," Stoltenberg said. "NATO aspires for a
more constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia. But to be able to
establish that, Russia must want it too."
Ukrainian lawmakers vote to end nation's nonaligned status
Ukrainian lawmakers vote to end nation's nonaligned status
There was no immediate reaction from Russian officials or
Moscow's state-run media to the news that the readiness force was in place.
Asked at the news conference whether Ukraine would be
granted NATO membership, Stoltenberg said there has been no application made as
yet and that Ukrainian officials have conceded it will be years before the
internal reforms are completed that are necessary to integrate with alliance
defense forces.
But there is "a fundamental principle which all
countries in Europe have subscribed to, and also that Russia has supported, and
that is that all sovereign nations have the right to choose their own
path," Stoltenberg said, adding that any membership bid would be evaluated
on the same criteria as applied to other states wishing to join.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- three Baltic Sea states
that were part of the Soviet Union after being invaded and annexed in 1940 --
are already members of NATO and will be among the Eastern European countries to
which the new rapid-response forces may be dispatched.
Poland, with its own long history of facing aggression by
Russia, has announced a major redeployment of its national defense forces from
bases in the western part of the country to fortify positions in the east.
Poland shares a 125-mile border with Russia's heavily militarized Kaliningrad
exclave, the former German territory of Koenigsberg captured by the Soviet Red
Army with the Nazi defeat in World War II.
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