Tension marks Nato summit closure

Tensions over Nato’s expansion to the East flared today as the alliance’s two-day summit closed with a diplomatic row and a protest from Russian communist hardliners.

The protocol row was sparked this morning when Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchmar insisted on attending a meeting of Nato’s Europe Atlantic Partnership Council, despite being accused of selling military radar equipment to Saddam Hussein in breach of a United Nations arms embargo on Iraq.

Delegation nameplates were switched from the customary English to French so that Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush were not sitting side by side with the man they accused of helping to arm Saddam.

And Nato’s Secretary General Lord Robertson’s closing press conference in the Czech capital Prague was disrupted by two Russian activists who hurled a tomato at him – which missed – and shouted “Nato’s worse than Gestapo” wearing armbands decorated with the old soviet symbol of a hammer and sickle.

The summit yesterday had agreed to admit seven former Eastern bloc countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stayed away from the summit because of domestic sensitivities surrounding the accession of so many former Warsaw Pact countries.

Instead, foreign minister Igor Ivanov joined a Nato-Russian meeting today, making plain his country’s coolness towards the move, despite its strengthening relations with the alliance.

Lord Robertson conceded: “I didn’t expect anything other than a lukewarm response from the government of Russia.”

Lord Robertson said the summit, which also agreed to set up a 21,000 strong rapid reaction force to help fight global terrorism and combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, had been “historic”.

He said it had been “a real turning point and it will be remembered by history”.

He shrugged off the diplomatic rows saying: “There has been no shadow over this summit.”

The meeting of 19 Nato leaders and 27 partner countries also yesterday issued a strongly-worded statement backing the United Nations stance over Iraq.