RUSSIA:Nato's military expansion towards Russia's borders is a throwback to the cold war that only serves to cause antagonism, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said yesterday.
In an usually tough attack on the alliance, Mr Lavrov told a news conference that there was no security justification for the enlargement and he warned former Soviet states that they could hurt their ties with Russia if they joined Nato.
Russia has watched uneasily as former Warsaw Pact states joined Nato since the end of the cold war, and it expressed displeasure after ex-Soviet Ukraine last week applied to Nato to take the first steps towards membership.
"We consider that the Nato policy of open doors [ to new members] is a policy inherited from the cold war," Mr Lavrov said. "We are convinced that the geographical enlargement of Nato was not seriously motivated by security . . . It will not lead to a single security space; on the contrary it will lead to fragmentation and new dividing lines."
Russia has expressed opposition to Nato enlargement for more than a decade but Mr Lavrov's comments were unusually toughly-worded. He returned to the subject several times during the 90-minute news conference.
"We see how the new members are being absorbed [ into Nato] in the military sense. There is intensive military patrolling, opening of airfields and military bases," he said.
"We hear that Nato enlargement is not directed against Russia . . . [ Nineteenth-century German chancellor Otto von] Bismarck said that in politics, especially in military affairs, you have to judge not intentions but potential. And the potential, the military spending, is increasing."
Mr Lavrov also said some new Nato member states were "trying to rewrite history [ and] making heroes of the Nazis".
This comment appeared to be a reference to the Baltic states, where veterans who during the second World War fought alongside the German army against the Soviet Union march annually to commemorate their comrades.
Speaking about the prospect of independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo, Mr Lavrov said it would create a precedent for other separatists.
Moscow, a close Serb ally, has long opposed independence for Kosovo, partly because it fears pro-Russian separatists in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia could use this as a pretext for demanding international recognition.
Mr Lavrov said Kosovo's independence would set a precedent not just for the disputed Georgian territories but for "200 territories" around the world. "The precedent will be created not because we want it but because it will be objectively created . . . because justice is an understanding that drives people," he said.
"If someone is allowed to do something, many others will expect similar treatment."
Should Kosovo unilaterally decide to break away from Serbia, international recognition was not a fait accompli, he added.