BRUSSELS – Ties with Russia are improving, NATO insisted Thursday, despite strains created by the release of confidential U.S. cables regarding the Baltics.
Secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks disclosed that NATO secretly decided in January to draft a defense plan to cover NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia. U.S. diplomats cited in the documents asked for the plan to remain secret in order to avoid irritating Moscow.
Russia reacted in anger earlier this week when the cables were released and questioned whether NATO really wants closer ties.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday played down the controversy.
"We do not consider Russia a threat to NATO, nor does NATO present a danger to Russia," he said on the sidelines of European Union defense ministers' meeting in Brussels.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev attended the alliance's annual summit in Lisbon, Portugal, last month. The two sides agreed to boost cooperation in the Afghan war, and in their counter-narcotics and maritime anti-piracy efforts.
Fogh Rasmussen said NATO and Russia initiated work Wednesday on a previously agreed missile defense system. He also said an earlier agreement to expand NATO's overland supply route to Afghanistan via Russia had begun.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the plans released on WikiLeaks originated in December 2009, when the alliance and Russia were moving to mend ties strained by the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
"It raises a question when was NATO sincere — at a time when we openly discussed the development of our partnership, or when they were making quite different decisions between themselves?" Lavrov said, according to reports in the Russian media.
The U.S. diplomatic cables indicated that some East European nations were alarmed by the speed of Russia's victory over Georgian forces.
Within three days, Georgia's western-trained army had been expelled from a breakaway province and was withdrawing in disarray. Russian troops occupied parts of Georgia proper for several weeks before pulling out under an EU cease-fire plan.
NATO's plan for the defense of Poland and the Baltic states calls for the deployment of nine divisions in case of war, but does not identify the possible foe.
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Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.
