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C O M M E N T A R Y
NATO SUMMIT MEETING IN PRAGUE CAN COMMENCE NEW STAGE OF RAPPROCHEMENT OR RUSSIA AND NORTH ATLANTIC ALLIANCE

MOSCOW, 14 November. /RIA Novosti military observer Viktor Litovkin/. The sooner the date of the November NATO summit meeting when new states have to be invited into the North Atlantic Alliance, the more information is provided by diplomatic and military sources of Western countries on decisions scheduled to be taken there. And though there emerges no official statements from the NATO headquarters in Brussels, these circles ascertain that seven states will be invited into the Alliance: Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and all Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). And if admittance of Bulgaria and Romania is of strategic importance for the Alliance as that gives it access to the most important geopolitical area, the Muslim world, from which the major threat of international terrorism is emanating, then for the Baltic states it is a psychologically understandable crucial moment in their history rather than any real military need.

But, according to statements made by diplomatic sources, the major contents of the Prague meeting of heads of NATO member-states will be a decision not on NATO's expansion but on its transformation. The North Atlantic Alliance is looking for its specific place in the constantly changing world and strives to determine its new role there. It means that it also has to introduce changes and to reform itself.

NATO reforms will, first of all, concern reorganization of its command. From now on there will be not three geographically defined commands, as before, but 5, according to areas of military and political activity. Thus the Alliance rejects the concept of continental wars and moves over to preparation for resolution of specific objectives related to the struggle against terrorism, to peace-keeping activity, curbing of proliferation of mass destruction weapons, provision of assistance to countries which suffered from natural calamities and other emergency circumstances.

Relations between Russia and NATO are also drastically changing and a corresponding special statement will be made in Prague. Firstly, the Alliance will wish to underline that admittance of new member-states bears no political or military threats and challenges against Russia. By the way at the recent meeting in Brussels with President Vladimir Putin NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson was talking about that. Nowadays all 19 Alliance member-states will undertake the same official commitment.

Secondly, NATO will officially propose to Russia to cooperate in all security spheres which can be of interest to it.

According to Western diplomats, Brussels is very happy with the expanding cooperation with Moscow within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council. This cooperation is being especially intensively developing in the area of the struggle against international terrorism. On 11 June this year a working group was already established with participation of Russian experts which already prepared proposals on exchange of intelligence information. The group developed a concept of the joint struggle against that international evil, evaluated real terrorist threats which might be aimed at Russian peace-keepers in the Balkans, against civil aviation, revealed major bases where Al-Qaeda militants are being trained and their capabilities in Europe, Central and Middle Asia, in other regions of the world. This document is expected to be presented to Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov in the course of his visit to Prague.

Brussels is also satisfied with the process of the joint work with Russian experts on non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons in the course of which corresponding terrorist threats against Moscow and other states are being comprehensively assessed. They are also developing a concept of joint actions of Russia and NATO in the process of settlement of international critical situations.

Diplomatic circles of the Alliance state that their countries gained serious experience in cooperation between peace-keeping forces in the Balkans. It is necessary to expand that experience to cover other regions of the world. Moreover there exists a necessity to raise the status of Russian generals and officers in this area. At the moment they operate only at the executive level and do not participate in preparation of decisions and in task assignment. That is definitely not correct. But in order to change their role it is necessary to develop a special mechanism, which at the moment does not exist within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council. The Alliance is also interested in wider use of aircraft of the Russian military and transport aviation to quickly transfer its military contingents to various regions of the planet.

NATO does not have such aviation and its creation will be very costly. And the USA can not always provide the required amount of such aircraft. On top of that their cargo lifting capabilities and capacity also not always correspond to requirements put forward by combat operations. That is why Brussels heavily relies on Russian "Ruslan" and "Antei" aircraft. Such cooperation will also have to be fixed by special agreements.

It is true that optimistic enough intermediate results were not achieved in every sphere of cooperation within the composition of the Russia-NATO Council. Still there is no progress in the work to develop a European non-strategic anti-missile defense concept. Experts held several meetings but nothing was achieved except good wishes. That can be explained by certain apprehensions: for example, Russia will show its cards, and then its information will be used for intelligence and commercial purposes. At the same time Russia will receive no purchase orders to participate in the joint work and its defense enterprises and design bureaus will suffer direct losses. On top of that the US position in this area is still not clear but the American military and industrial complex claims to be the monopolist in shipments of equipment and weapons for the system of European Theatre Missile Defence.

But however, according to NATO diplomatic and military circles, the Prague summit meeting of the Alliance is designed not to make relations between Moscow and Brussels more difficult but to improve them. We are entering a new stage of our historical development where we have common goals and objectives. That means that we go our way.

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