BRUSSELS (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Monday for NATO to reaffirm Georgia's bid for membership and thwart Russia's "strategic objective" of stopping the Alliance's expansion.
Rice, who arrived in Brussels Monday for crisis talks with NATO allies on Georgia, told reporters on her plane that Washington would not try to speed up Georgia and Ukraine's path to membership in the Alliance.
But she said NATO must make it clear to Russia that it cannot stand in the way of former Soviet countries building closer relationships with the West.
"We are going to send the message that we are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the transatlantic structures like Georgia and Ukraine," she said.
"We are determined to deny them their strategic objective."
The NATO foreign ministers are meeting Tuesday, at Washington's request, to seek a common position on the Georgia situation and reaffirm their solidarity with Tbilisi.
At the last NATO summit in Bucharest in April, leaders agreed that Georgia and Ukraine should join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization eventually, but neither nation was given candidate status and no timetables were set.
Membership Action Plan (MAP) status for Georgia and Ukraine is due to be reviewed at a December meeting.
"I don't expect that we will -- and nor have we sought to -- accelerate MAP for Georgia," Rice said.
"We have said that was a matter for December and we will take that up in December."
Rice castigated Moscow again for the eruption of violence in the Caucasus this month, saying it would pay the price in the long run for its incursions into Georgia.
"Russian protestations that it wants to be a part of the international community in a 21st century way, the Russian president who continually says things that his forces don't carry out: those are matters that are much harder to rebuild than Georgian ports," she warned.
"Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used when it wishes to deliver a message. And that is military power. That is not the way to deal in the 21st century."
Rice said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was failing to keep his pledge to withdraw Moscow's forces from Georgia Monday, hinting that he may lack the authority to fulfil his promise.
"(I wonder) why the Russian president either will not or cannot keep his word," she said.
But she insisted there would be no radical break with Moscow, with cooperation continuing on issues such as dealing with the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.
"In my conversations with (Russian Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov, as a matter of fact, we did affirm that we continue to have strategic projects of common interest," she said.
Rice will also meet EU leaders including French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Fererro-Waldner during her brief stay in Brussels.
And she is to hold bilateral talks with Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili on the sidelines of the NATO meeting.
She will continue on to Warsaw later Tuesday where she will sign a deal to install a missile defense shield on Polish territory, a move sure to further inflame tensions with Russia.
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