Medvedev Warns Against Nato Admission for Russian Neighbours

Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia could threaten European security and undermine attempts to improve transatlantic relations, the Russian president-elect warned today.

Dmitry Medvedev, who was elected earlier this month and will take office in May, signaled that, like his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, he would draw a line in the sand at two of Russia's neighbors joining the west's military alliance.

"We are not happy about the situation around Georgia and Ukraine," Medvedev said in an interview with the Financial Times. "We consider it extremely troublesome for the existing structure of European security. No state can be pleased about having representatives of a military bloc to which it does not belong coming close to its borders."

Ukraine's pro-western president, Viktor Yushchenko, who came to office in January 2005 in the so-called Orange revolution, has made Nato membership a priority for his former Soviet country of 47 million people.

Russia has already warned Ukraine of deteriorating relations should it join Nato's membership action plan, a stepping stone towards full membership.

Medvedev said there was little public enthusiasm in Ukraine for joining Nato, despite Yushchenko's eagerness. The Georgian public is largely in favor, but Nato countries have expressed concern at the state of emergency imposed there in December to end opposition protests.

Britain said it recognized the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine to join Nato, but said they had to meet various criteria, including on human rights and democratic processes.

"We keep the door open to Nato expansion to countries such as Georgia and Ukraine," said a Foreign Office spokesman, adding that each application would be treated on its merits.

Nato, a military alliance created in 1949 to contain the then Soviet Union, has steadily expanded eastwards since the Soviet break-up in 1991. Seven eastern European countries - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - joined Nato in March 2004.

Nato is currently engaged in its most important operation since its creation through the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, where it is trying to prop up the government of Hamid Karzai against a reinvigorated Taliban.

The Nato aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia are expected to be a thorny subject at the alliance's summit in Bucharest, Romania, next week. Some of Nato's 26 member states, including heavyweights such as France and Germany, as well as Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain, have expressed reservations about the alliance's eastward expansion.

Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, recently said the EU wanted to start on a fresh footing with Russia now that it was about to get a new leader after Putin.

In his FT interview, Medvedev, who has a legal background, also spoke about the importance of the rule of law. Outlining a three-point plan, Medvedev said the first step was to assert the law's supremacy over executive power and individual actions, the second was to create a "new attitude to the law" and the third was to create an effective courts system by assuring the judiciary's independence and prestige.