MOSCOW, March 1 (RIA Novosti) - Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov of Russia has called on Lithuanian authorities to allow military transit through Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea.
Russia allows some of the NATO states to transport Afghanistan-bound military personnel and hardware through its territory, so it has every right to require that Lithuania, as a member of the Nirth-Atlantic alliance, should grant its permission for military transit to and from Kaliningrad (Russian exclave on the Baltic sea), Mr. Ivanov told a Moscow press conference Tuesday.
The Russian minister was rather optimistic about the prospects of Russia getting such permission. He expressed his doubts that Lithuania would be cooperative enough, saying that both that country and the neighboring Latvia had repeatedly failed to live up to the commitments made to the Russia-NATO Council.
