Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Russia may target Baltic states next

Via The Australian:

NATO must strengthen its defence of the three Baltic countries – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – after Russia's assault on Georgia, the new US envoy to NATO said in an interview.

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," Mr 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."

Mr Volker said NATO must send signals that it intends to help the Baltic states, and uphold its Article 5, which guarantees the defence of each signatory by all the rest.

No comments: