Nato ministers face uneasy meeting with Russia

Nato defence ministers face a tense meeting in Portoroz, Slovenia, today with their Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov, after the Western alliance angered Moscow last week by agreeing to deepen co-operation with Georgia.

Moscow denounced the move a throwback to Cold War days that hurts Russian interests and risks further destabilising the Caucasus region.

Ivanov threatened to send two divisions of Russian troops to the border with Georgia to ensure “Russia’s security won’t be hurt if Georgia enters Nato.”

Yesterday the already-strained relations between Russia and Georgia hit a new low when Georgia detained five Russian officers on spying charges, prompting Moscow to recalled its ambassador, announce an evacuation of diplomats and complain to the United Nations. Ivanov called Georgia a “bandit state”.

Diplomats said an indignant Ivanov strongly expressed Russia’s concerns at a reception with Nato ministers last night. Some Russian officials have complained the Georgians were emboldened by Nato’s decision to offer them the intensified cooperation programme, which is considered a step toward possible membership of the alliance.

Nato has sought to soothe Russian unease over its relations with Georgia - which has made membership of the Western military pact a foreign policy priority. “We do not consider ourselves to be a threat to anybody,” John Colston, Nato’s assistant secretary general said this week.

Before their regular autumn meeting with Ivanov, the Nato ministers opened talks on modernising their armed military – seeking to improve co-ordination of special forces and boost their capacity to airlift troops over long distances.

On the first day of the meeting yesterday, the ministers approved an extension of the alliance’s Afghan security mission across the entire country, taking in the volatile eastern region and bringing up to 12,000 more U.S. troops under allied command.

The move is expected to take place in the next few weeks hard on the heels of the advance by Nato troops into the southern sector two months ago, which has sparked fierce resistance from Taliban fighters and dragged the alliance into the first major ground combat since it was formed six decades ago.

The ministers also agreed to provide substantial amounts of military equipment for the Afghan army which has been fighting alongside Nato troops battling Taliban insurgents in the south of the country.

“There were in rough numbers thousands of weapons offered up, and I believe probably millions of rounds of ammunition,” said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He also said some allies had offered to increase training for the Afghans.

Rumsfeld said a number of nations had stepped forward in response to appeals from Nato commanders for up to 2,500 extra troops to join the operation against the Taliban in the south, but said more were still needed. He declined to say which countries had made offers.

The move into the east will also bring to up to 14,000 the total number of US troops under the command of British Lt. Gen. David Richards, the Nato commander in Afghanistan.

That would be the largest number of US troops brought under a foreign battlefield commander since the Second World War, US officials said.

However, overall control of the mission lies with Nato’s supreme commander, US Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, and a US general is expected to replace Richards in February for a one-year rotation.

European ministers came under pressure at the meeting to send more troops to southern Afghanistan, where soldiers from Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands have borne the brunt of the fighting.

“If you are a member of an alliance based on solidarity, you have to deliver,” said Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. “We need to do more.”

Rumsfeld and de Hoop Scheffer also pushed nations to lift restrictions on their troops in Afghanistan which limit their deployment to peacekeeping in the relatively safe north and west and prevent commanders sending them to the southern battlefields. “There is a good deal of pressure on them,” Rumsfeld said.

He declined to point the finger at particular countries, but called the situation “really not acceptable.” Germany, Italy and Spain all have large contingents in north or western Afghanistan and have ruled out sending them to the south.

The United States will continue its separate anti-terrorist mission to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida operatives with about 8,000 troops.