MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - The admission of countries neighboring Russia to NATO will seriously affect Moscow's political, military and economic interests, and will have a negative impact on trouble spots, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko was responding to a question on whether Georgia's accession to the Western security alliance could sour relations between Russia and NATO.
"Any expansion of military-political unions leads to substantial changes in the security sphere. The admission of Russia's immediate neighbors to the [NATO] alliance will seriously affect our political, military and economic interests and will have a negative effect on the fragile situation in 'problem' areas," he said.
He said countries joining the alliance are attempting to solve their problems by including them into the context of Russian-NATO relations.
"In the case of Georgia, these fears, unfortunately, have received further confirmation. The Georgian leadership construes NATO's moves toward Tbilisi as an incentive for pursuing confrontation with Russia," he said.
NATO has expanded to include many of Russia's former Communist-bloc allies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in the Baltic Region. And a NATO ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York decided to step up dialogue with Georgia with the aim of admitting the Caucasus state next year.
Relations between the former Soviet states have been strained over the presence of Russian peacekeepers in conflict zones involving two self-proclaimed republics in Georgia and other issues, including a Russian ban on the import of Georgian mineral water and wine.
Russia's parliament ratified an agreement between Russia and Georgia on the withdrawal of military hardware and personnel from bases on Georgian territory.
Russia is to withdraw military hardware from the southern city of Akhalkalaki by the end of 2006. Russian troops and the rest of its military hardware must be withdrawn by December 31, 2007, which is also the deadline for the handover of Russian military facilities to Georgia.
Alexei Maslov, the commander of the Russian Ground Forces, said at the Federation Council's session that a number of Russian servicemen withdrawn from bases in Georgia will serve in mountain brigades in the Caucasus republics of Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Daghestan.
