"These countries are security consumers rather than generators. But then, it's none of our business how effectively the NATO member nations' taxpayers' money is used," Mr. Ivanov said.
"This isn't about the four aircraft [that is, the NATO planes patrolling the skies over the three new Baltic member states]. These pose no threat from the military point of view. In military terms, there is just one problem-we have no security pact with the Baltic states. And we don't want any additional incidents to occur," the Russian Defense Minister pointed out.
"We have such accords with the U.S., Norway and China, but not with the Baltic nations. And we cannot figure out how those planes are capable of intercepting al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The only thing they could really intercept is the mythical 'Soviet threat'," he said.
Asked about his personal attitude to the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic alliance, Sergei Ivanov described it as "calmly negative." In his view, the main problem is not that the Baltic states have a poor human rights record, at least from the European community's perspective, Mr. Ivanov said. Much more disturbing is what's going on in the Baltics in terms of glorifying Nazism.
The U.S. Defense Secretary, for his part, said that NATO and Russia had a relationship already and that it was developing in a meaningful way. Russia takes part in various NATO activities, Mr. Rumsfeld said. He then went on to express his agreement with the Russian opposite number's point that security accords between Russia and the three neighboring Baltic states were, indeed, indispensable.
