Americas

Home page

Americas

Condoleezza Rice: â€œWe will not allow Russia to wield a veto over the future of our Euro-Atlantic communityâ€

19 September 2008 08:46 (UTC +04:00)

Washington -APA. â€œRussia’s leaders are risking the future progress of the Russian people and putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance", said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the event organized by the German Marshall Fund in Washington, APA quotes CNN. â€œRussia is becoming increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroadâ€, Rice said. She insisted that Russia would not be allowed to dictate who joined the NATO alliance. "We will not allow Russia to wield a veto over the future of our Euro-Atlantic community - neither what states we offer membership, nor the choice of those states to accept it," she said. "We have made this particularly clear to our friends in Ukraine." Rice acknowledged that Georgia had fired the first shots in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. "The Georgian government launched a major military operation into Tskhinvali and other areas of that separatist region," she said. But Ms Rice said that Russia had escalated the conflict. Ms Rice said it had been "deeply disconcerting" that Russia had tried to "dismember" Georgia by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Rice accused Moscow in using its natural resources as political weapon.