11 June 2004 16:26
NATO did not let Russia in on Kosovo decisions, says general
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Moscow, 11 June: Russia has been deprived of a chance to participate in planning and developing decisions with
regards to Kosovo due to NATO stance since 1999, Col-Gen Viktor Zavarzin, Chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee,
said on Friday [11 June]. "We had to terminate our participation in the peacekeeping mission due to the fact that
the NATO authorities did not want to consider the Kosovo operation a joint Russia-NATO one," Zavarzin told
Interfax-Military News Agency. "Russia was dead against this approach, which considerably limited Russia's
influence on the peacekeeping policy in the region. We did not want to be passive executors, fulfilling NATO decisions
without a murmur," Zavarzin emphasized. Zavarzin headed the Russian Airborne Troops exactly five years ago on 11-12
June 1999, when they crossed the whole of Serbia and entered Kosovo ahead of NATO forces, securing the strategically
important Slatina airfield. Zavarzin noted that NATO actions in the Balkans had contradicted previous agreement, signed
by Russia and NATO. He also said that the feasibility of a standoff of Russian and NATO forces in Kosovo five years ago
was minimal. "Although, a war is totally unpredictable, given our experience in dealing with NATO representatives,
we believed that they would not start fighting without a corresponding decision of the NATO Council," he said.
"If such a decision had been taken, we would still have had enough time to react. We were sure that if we had been
attacked, we would have been supported by the Serbs, which would signify the outset of a ground operation, so feared in
Brussels," Zavarzin emphasized.
[Interfax-AVN military news agency web site] |
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