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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 25, 2002

Putin on NATO Enlargement, Kaliningrad Issue

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he did not think membership in NATO would bring better security to those countries seeking to join the alliance.


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Putin on NATO Enlargement, Kaliningrad Issue
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he did not think membership in NATO would bring better security to those countries seeking to join the alliance.

"We don't think that the expansion of NATO improves anybody's security," Putin told a news conference in the Kremlin.

However, when asked to comment on Estonia's admission into North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Putin said Russia would not oppose any other state's entry into the alliance.

"If Estonia wants to joint the alliance, if it thinks it will be better, I see no tragedy in that," he said.

As for the issue of Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, Putin said Moscow would never agree with decisions that would actually break up the sovereign territory of Russia.

The free transit of people and cargo between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia should be guaranteed, said the president.

Kaliningrad will be sandwiched between European Union member states when Poland and Lithuania join the union in 2004. Russia has proposed allowing its Kaliningrad citizens to travel overland without visas between the region and the rest of Russia. But the EU insists that its rules requiring Russian citizens to have visasmust be applied in Poland or Lithuania.

Putin said earlier that Kaliningrad was the most acute problem in relations between Russia and the EU. But he noted on Monday that despite the Kaliningrad problem, Moscow welcomes the enlargement of the EU, which is Russia's main trading and economicpartner.

A total of 700 journalists and more than 60 TV cameras were accredited to attend Putin's news conference, the second of its kind since he was sworn in as Russian President in 1999. During the nearly two-hour meeting, the president replied questions ranging from domestic issues to foreign policies from Russian and foreign journalists.


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