Putin was right, Stoltenberg was wrong: NATO
“brazenly deceived” Russia about expansion
and a British document proves it
Document confirms US told Russia NATO won’t
expand
By RT
February 20, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- "
RT" --
A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows
US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a
pledge made to Russia that NATO will not expand to
Poland and beyond. Its publication by the German
magazine Der Spiegel on Friday proves Moscow right
and NATO wrong on the matter.
The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn
between political directors of the foreign
ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany
contain multiple references to “2+4” talks
on German unification in which the West made it
“clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO will not
expand past the eastern borders of Germany.
“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in
the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations –
that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal
of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the
document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for
Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz.
“NATO should not expand to the east, either
officially or unofficially,” Seitz added.
A British representative also mentions the
existence of a “general agreement” that
membership of NATO for eastern European countries is
“unacceptable.”
“We had made it clear during the 2+4
negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond
the Elbe,” said West German diplomat Juergen
Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and
others membership in NATO.”
The minutes later clarified he was referring to
the Oder River, the boundary between East Germany
and Poland. Hrobog further noted that West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher had agreed with this position
as well.
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The document was found in the UK National
Archives by Joshua Shifrinson, a political science
professor at Boston University in the US. It had
been marked “Secret” but was declassified
at some point.
Shifrinson tweeted on Friday he was “honored”
to work with Der Spiegel on the document showing
that “Western diplomats believed they had indeed
made a NATO non-enlargement pledge.”
“Senior policymakers deny a non-expansion
pledge was offered. This new document shows
otherwise,” Shifrinson said in a
follow-up tweet, noting that “beyond”
the Elbe or Oder by any standard includes Eastern
European countries to which NATO started expanding
just eight years later.
During a major press conference in December 2021,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West had
promised the Soviet Union NATO would not expand
“a single inch” to the east, but “brazenly
deceived” and “cheated” Moscow to do
just that.
Responding to these comments, NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg
said the alliance “has never promised not to
expand.” In an interview with Der Spiegel
later, Stoltenberg repeated that “there has
never been such a promise, there has never been such
a behind-the-scenes deal, it is simply not true.”
NATO admitted Poland, Hungary, and Czechia in
March 1999, just before launching an air war
against Yugoslavia without the permission of the
UN Security Council. This put NATO directly on
the Russian border – the enclave of Kaliningrad
– for the first time ever. The next round of
expansion in 2004 included the former Soviet
republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,
placing NATO’s eastern frontier just 135
kilometers (84 miles) from St. Petersburg.
In
a series of security proposals made public in
December, Russia demanded NATO publicly renounce
expansion to the former Soviet republics of
Ukraine and Georgia and withdraw US forces to
the 1997 boundaries of the alliance, among other
things. The US and NATO have rejected this,
arguing the alliance’s “open door”
membership policy is a fundamental principle for
them.
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