From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------- 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 _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
