Russia and the ancient fear of NATO expansion. SPIEGEL: “Western law promises not to extend the alliance”

German Chancellor Olaf Schulz Talking to Security Conference to Munich On the Ukrainian crisis He indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin Likes to call him back Historical precedents But this you can’t Boundaries Re-Discussed Today, or else we might go back two hundred years and find the substance of countless disputes. One of theses Russia Is this the Boy She vowed not to expand eastward into the territory of the former Soviet Union. According to reports Der Spiegel Note discovered by the American scientist in the British National Archives Joshua Shiffrinson This will support reading. In a meeting between the political directors of the ministries of foreign affairs in United States of AmericaAnd the United kingdomAnd the France And the Germany happened in bon On March 6, 1991, whose theme was Safety Poland Based on other eastern countries West German representative Jürgen Schroeburg He declared, “In the 2+4 negotiations, we made it clear We will not expand NATO beyond the Elbe River. So we cannot allow Poland and the others to join NATO.” And also the representative of the United States Raymond Seitz He would add: “We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 meetings as in others – that we would gain no advantage from the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Eastern Europe.” The article concluded that after two years the Americans had corrected their policy.

NATO has always ruled out such reconstruction, but Russian concern about NATO expansion to the east will also emanate from the transcript of a phone call from the former Russian president. Boris Yeltsin President of the United States Bill Clinton On September 15, 1993: “I would also like to draw attention to the fact that the spirit of the Treaty on the Final State of Germany signed in September 1990, especially the provisions prohibiting Deployment of foreign forces In the eastern regions of GermanyIt precludes the option of expanding the NATO area to the east.”

The agreements mentioned by Yeltsin however were limited to Treaty of Germany Logged in flies On September 12, 1990, which was signed between the two countries at the time GermanyAnd the FranceAnd the kingdom UnitedAnd the United States of America and theSoviet Union Before the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991. After – as you remember Gavin Elle Hall FromUniversity of Strathclyde – The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to transform NATO’s confrontational policy with Warsaw Pact The new reality of dialogue and cooperation with the countries of the East. NATO did not seek expansion, but in 1994 it established a Partnership for Peace with NACC countries as well as some Asian countries.

there PolandThe Czechoslovakia and theHungary but with Visegrad Declaration On February 15, 1991, they had already agreed between them on a cooperative relationship aspiring to enter into the political, economic and legislative defense system and the European defense system. They will then join NATO in 1999, following an official invitation from NATO in Madrid Summit dated 8-9 July 1997; there Slovakia He became a member on March 29, 2004.

Two months ago, on May 27, 1997, Boy I signed in Paris a document of cooperation and mutual and security relations with Russian Federation Agree to create Permanent Joint Council Then it was replaced in 2002 by NATO and Russia Council which met a little over a month ago. With the 1997 Treaty, NATO and Russia stated that the states party to the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, concluded between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (CFE), should “retain only military capabilities, individually or in combination with other states, to an extent commensurate with With legitimate individual or collective security needs Taking into account its international obligations, including the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe itself.” The intention was also announced to form task forces and joint exercises. Thus, a careful reading of the text does not allow for an official and explicit abandonment by NATO of the defense alliance of other countries.

On January 16, 1998 the Baltic States EstoniaAnd the Latvia And the Lithuania, decided with the United States a partnership aimed at joining NATO. At the same time, the agreement emphasized the interest in intensifying the relationship between NATO and Russia as an essential element of Peace in Europe. there Russia He did not oppose this process by negotiating until 1997 a border treaty with Latvia which declared independence in 1991. The agreement was then not concluded in time because the Latvian government adopted a unilateral interpretative declaration referring to the peace treaty with Russia August 11, 1920. Interpreted This gesture by Moscow as a regional request, even if the Prime Minister of Latvia Agars Calvitis He declared – in 2005 – that there was no claim and that his country would respect the limits set in the treaty. At the summit between the European Union and Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin I declare, among other things, that “we are ready to sign a border treaty with Latvia: Hopefully it won’t be accompanied by crazy regional issues. In Europe today, in the twenty-first century, if one country has territorial claims against another and at the same time wants to sign a Border Treaty With this country, this is just nonsense. The Russian Federation lost tens of thousands of its historical plots in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Do we have to split it all up again? We have to ask for lands Crimea And part of the territory of other former Soviet republics? In 2014 exactly that happened.