MADRID, 5 June 2003 — Russia offered to support NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan yesterday 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-strong 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 break-up of the Soviet Union, playing a major role in stemming a flood of illegal drugs from Afghanistan to Russia and beyond to Europe.
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 UN Security Council resolution.
