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2001-09-15 01:38 MSK - Russia denies US/Russia military action
MOSCOW - Russia's armed forces' chief of staff
said on Friday that Moscow was unlikely to join in any U.S. retaliatory strikes
following the terror attacks in New York and Washington, Interfax news agency
reported. ``The United States has armed forces powerful enough to handle the
task by themselves,'' General Anatoly Kvashnin was quoted as saying. At the same
time, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov discounted the ex-Soviet Central Asian
states being used as a springboard by the NATO alliance for military strikes
against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. ``I don't see any basis for even hypothetical
assumptions of the possibility of launching any NATO military operations in the
territory of Central Asian countries which are members of the CIS (Commonwealth
of Independent States),'' Ivanov told reporters in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
The remarks appeared to squash speculation that Russia would join the United
States and its NATO allies in a military action against the Taliban using the
ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia as a launching pad. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan, all members of the Russia-led CIS, border Afghanistan.
Tajikistan is a member of a separate Russian-dominated security body and
Uzbekistan consults closely on such issues, though Turkmenistan does not.
-Reuters
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