Nato says no to former Soviet bloc partners

Nato bowed to Russian pressure today by delaying plans to expand eastwards to include two former Soviet republics.

Georgia and Ukraine will not be put on track to join, but the alliance promised that the strategically important Black Sea nations will eventually become members.

However, French and German concern over Russia’s reaction dashed the two former Soviet nations’ hopes of being granted a “membership action plan” that would begin the procedure to bring them in within the next five to 10 years.

Greek opposition also meant that Macedonia was excluded from immediate membership, although Nato did agree to invite the Balkan nations of Albania and Croatia to join.

On a positive note French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he was sending a battalion of troops and elite special forces of around 1,000 soldiers to aid the fight against Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

And senior American officials said Nato leaders agreed to fully endorse US missile defence plans for Europe and urge Russia to drop its objections to the system.

Secretary general Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said Nato foreign ministers would review the applications of Ukraine and Georgia in December. He said a summit communique would stress that the ministers would have the authority to start membership procedures.

Mr 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.

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

The French offer of troops for Afghanistan will free up American troops to move south to Kandahar province. That averts the risk of a crisis within the Nato forces triggered by Canada’s threat to pull out its 2,500 beleaguered soldiers there unless they got 1,000 reinforcements from another ally.

Mr Sarkozy also told the Nato summit in Romania that he will decide within a year on a French return to the alliance’s integrated military command, more than four decades after Charles de Gaulle pulled out.

Symbolically, Nato agreed that its 60th anniversary summit next year will be held jointly in the French border city of Strasbourg and its German neighbour, Kehl.

The deployment in Afghanistan follows months of lobbying by the US to persuade European allies to send more troops to the front lines of the fight against the Taliban.

Greece blocked the alliance from inviting Macedonia to join Nato because of Athens’ objections to the country’s name. However, leaders said Macedonia can join as soon as it resolves the dispute.

Greece has a northern province that is also called Macedonia, and says the former Yugoslav republic’s insistence on being known as Macedonia implies a territorial claim.

Following their invitations, Croatia and Albania are expected to join Nato within the next two years, following parliamentary ratification of their entry.

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 the summit communique 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 move ahead with a complementary system of short-range missile defences to cover parts of Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria that would fall outside the US shield.