NATO turns down Georgia and Ukraine

NATO decided yesterday not to put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join the alliance after vehement Russian opposition, but the alliance pledged that the strategically important Black Sea nations will become members one day.

Senior American officials also said that Nato leaders agreed to fully endorse US missile defence plans for Europe, and urged Russia to drop its objections to the system.

French and German concern over Russia’s reaction dashed the two former Soviet republics’ hopes of being granted a “membership action plan” that would bring them into the alliance within the next five to 10 years.

But Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance welcomes the countries’ aspirations to join. “We agree today that these countries will become members of Nato,” he said.

Greek opposition to Macedonia on the basis of its name, the same as a Greek northern province meant it was excluded, though Nato agreed to invite Albania and Croatia to join. Macedonia’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Milososki, said his delegation would walk out of the summit in protest.

Nato foreign ministers will review Ukraine and Georgia’s applications again in December, de Hoop Scheffer said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were concerned about provoking Moscow, which has warned of a new East-West crisis if Nato takes in the two republics. Both are on Russia’s south-western border, across key east-west oil and gas routes.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko insisted that “Ukraine will be in Nato” one day.

Pro-Western governments in both republics had earlier warned that a failure to launch the membership process would be a bitter blow and a boost for pro-Russian forces in their countries.

“A ‘no’ for Georgia will show those people in the Kremlin who think that by a policy of blackmail, by arrogance and aggression they can influence Nato’s decisions,” Georgia’s Foreign Minister David Bakradze said. “A ‘no’ will be seen by those people as a victory.”

The Nato summit also gave a broad endorsement to US plans to base elements of its missile defences in Europe, despite Russia’s objections.

De Hoop Scheffer said a summit communiqué would recognise the protection the system will give to Europe from long-range ballistic missile threats, particularly from the Middle East. Russia fiercely opposes the plan.

The allies will also go ahead with a complementary short-range missile defence system to cover parts of Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria that would fall outside the US shield.

Nato also received a boost with the news that the French President had agreed to send a battalion of troops and elite special forces — expected to total around 1,000 soldiers — to bolster the ongoing fight against Taliban militants in Afghanistan.