Posted on 06/04/2003 10:03:28 AM PDT by knighthawk
MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - Russia offered to support NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan Wednesday but ruled out sending troops to a country where Moscow pulled out of a disastrous occupation in the 1980s.
Alliance Secretary-General George Robertson said after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Madrid that the offer, made by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, highlighted the dramatic improvement in relations between the Cold War foes.
"A few years ago ... it would have been inconceivable that a NATO presence in Afghanistan would have been welcomed by the Russian authorities," he told a news conference.
Ivanov did not specify in what areas Russia could help NATO, which is due to take command of the 5,200-member International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan on Aug. 11, but he made clear it "has no plans to deploy military forces."
A NATO diplomat said the 19-nation alliance was looking with Russia at various areas of support such as intelligence-sharing, logistics and the provision of air bases in Tajikistan.
Russia is thought to have about 10,000 troops in Tajikistan, Moscow's key ally in the region.
Those forces have been guarding the border there for more than a decade since the breakup of the Soviet Union, playing a major role in stemming a flood of illegal drugs from Afghanistan to Russia and beyond to Europe.
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in 1979 but its rule ended ignominiously 10 years later when Islamic guerrillas backed by the United States and neighboring states forced Soviet troops out.
U.N. MANDATE
More than 11,000 U.S. and allied troops are in Afghanistan hunting for members of the deposed hard-line Taliban government and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.
Russia threw its support -- but no troops -- behind the drive to oust the Taliban, and plans to increase its military presence in former Soviet Central Asia to counter threats from re-emerging Taliban and al Qaeda networks.
Ivanov told a news conference Russia was in favor of NATO taking control of the peacekeeping operation in Kabul because it was mandated by a U.N. Security Council resolution.
Asked about NATO's new drive to make itself relevant for post-Sept. 11 security threats by taking on operations "out of area" -- beyond the borders it defended during the Cold War -- the Russian minister was more circumspect.
"The fundamental issue is that there should be an appropriate legal basis and in each case a legal basis is essentially a United Nations Security Council resolution."
Robertson and Ivanov spoke in glowing terms of the cooperation between the alliance and Moscow since the NATO-Russia Council was established a year ago amid declarations the Cold War had finally ended.
Diplomats said the council had so far achieved little more than improve understanding and trust. "It's an organization in waiting, mood music for solid achievements later," said one.
Been there, done that.
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