Wednesday, Sep. 26, 2001. Page 3
NATO Chief Sees An Ally in Russia
Reuters|
ROME -- The attacks on the United States have pushed NATO and Russia closer together, giving them a common enemy that they did not previously share, the secretary-general of NATO said in an interview published Tuesday. "Two weeks ago no one would have imagined that world security would have changed in such a dramatic fashion," George Robertson told Rome's la Repubblica newspaper. "Today we have a side effect: NATO and Russia have moved much closer together than appearances might suggest." Robertson said Moscow would not feel threatened by the possible use of former Soviet states as bases for U.S. and NATO forces for any eventual attack on Afghanistan. "They know very well that we don't intend to expand into Central Asia. ... This is a shared struggle to identify and eradicate the roots of terrorism," he said. "As we all know, some of those roots are in Afghanistan." Roberston compared the impending "war on terrorism" to the enlightened world's fight against slavery. |
