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West promised not to expand NATO – Der Spiegel

anatta

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German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday < ---source


The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the Western officials made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO would not push into territory east of Germany.

“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz.

“NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added.

A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for eastern European countries is “unacceptable.”

“We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe [sic],”
said West German diplomat Juergen Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and others membership in NATO.”
 
This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25). The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.
 
ATO did promise Moscow it wouldn't expand, former German defense official tells RT
Willy Wimmer told RT he personally witnessed the West vowing that NATO would not expand to the east

Despite their denials, Western leaders did make a promise to the USSR that NATO would not expand to Central and Eastern Europe when Moscow agreed to Germany’s reunification, Willy Wimmer, a former vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has claimed in an interview with RT on Saturday.

The veteran politician, who served as parliamentary secretary to Germany’s defense minister between 1985 and 1992, said that he personally witnessed this promise when he “sent Chancellor Helmut Kohl the statement on the Bundeswehr in NATO and NATO in Europe, which was completely incorporated into the treaties on reunification.”

Berlin’s decision at that time “not to station NATO troops on the territory of the former East Germany and to stop NATO near the Oder” was part of this promise, Wimmer added.
 
Exactly, OP
This extract ( below ) is taken from a bigger analysis by B in Moon of Alabama and makes the same general point .
Any big action in the east will come from a carefully rehearsed US False Flag . Fortunately the CIA are so amateur that it should be seen through very quickly .
Like the fake Russian troop movement shots , the BS will clear if people DYOR .

For the past 15 years, ever since the Munich speech, Russian officials have been arguing against the unilateral use of force and demanding a UN-centered security system founded on international law. Were we to wake up one day and find that Russian tanks were rolling towards Kiev without any kind of excuse, it would amount to a complete abandonment of 15 years of argumentation as well as a negation of the entire legal/moral position built up by the Russian Federation in that period, a position reinforced just this month in the Putin/Xi statement.
It would also be very odd. For you can hardly achieve the objective of a multipolar world based on the principles of UN supremacy and international law by means of a massive breach of those very same principles. It would be extraordinarily self-defeating. A certain skepticism about the allegedly “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine is therefore due. It’s not impossible, but one has to wonder why, after so many years of consistency, Putin would suddenly change his position in such a drastic way.
Russia will help the rebellious Donbas region should it be attacked by Ukrainian government forces. The support will be in form of supplies and long range artillery assaults on Ukrainian troop concentrations.
 
Leaders change. Leaders cannot bind future leaders of the same country, to any foreign policy, except by treaty.

I'm not sure about the others, but I know the US President cannot make treaties without consent of Congress.

And most certainly "US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz" can't make a treaty.

So does Russia have a treaty? No? Then they can shove the "understanding" right up their ass.
 
About as binding as was the Budapest Memorandum. We saw how that worked out in 2014.

Isn't it strange how those who bang on remorselessly about the 'rules based order' and base their policies on 'values' so casually dismiss verbal commitments given to other world leaders?

I mean, it's almost as if the West's policy amounts to 'we must obey the law unless we don't feel like it'. I could name a few illegal military actions here ......... but we all know about them.

So for me the moral of the story is that the West can't be trusted, its leaders are casually hypocritical and dismissive of international agreements they don't like.

Which gets us to Minsk. Ukraine needs to implement it, and Biden should pick up the phone to its puppet in Kiev and tell him to get on with it. Unless of course he actually wants to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Such a noble policy!
 
I don’t care what promises were made. Russia is a dictatorship and is not a valid party to negotiate with on such matters.
 
Isn't it strange how those who bang on remorselessly about the 'rules based order' and base their policies on 'values' so casually dismiss verbal commitments given to other world leaders?

Rules are written down, and arbitrated by a court. For instance the ICJ in the Hague.

Verbal commitments by Deputy Secretaries of State are not rules.

I mean, it's almost as if the West's policy amounts to 'we must obey the law unless we don't feel like it'. I could name a few illegal military actions here ......... but we all know about them.

How about the invasion of Poland by the Nazis and the Soviets at the same time? It's called the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" if you'd like to look it up.

Scoundrels make international agreements on a handshake. The righteous do it in writing, and it's called a treaty.

So for me the moral of the story is that the West can't be trusted, its leaders are casually hypocritical and dismissive of international agreements they don't like.

Again, your definition of "international agreement" is suspect.

Which gets us to Minsk. Ukraine needs to implement it, and Biden should pick up the phone to its puppet in Kiev and tell him to get on with it. Unless of course he actually wants to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Such a noble policy!

Minsk needs to implement what? Did you leave some words out?
 
I don’t care what promises were made. Russia is a dictatorship and is not a valid party to negotiate with on such matters.

Oh - I see.

So Western agreements with states they don't really like are completely meaningless if the West feels like ignoring them at some point in the future.

I think we all knew that, but its great that you made it clear.
 
Another Trump supporter spouting pro-Russian propaganda. And from RT.com no less.

What will you say once thousands of Ukrainians start dying? Will you continue with your lies and excuses?
you should look at the one source. it's Der Spiegle. The other is an interview.the last is documentation
 
Oh - I see.

So Western agreements with states they don't really like are completely meaningless if the West feels like ignoring them at some point in the future.

I think we all knew that, but its great that you made it clear.
Please show the treaty or other document that has the force of law.

Also it is the duty of the western world to spread human rights to countries of a lesser moral order.
 
Oh - I see.

So Western agreements with states they don't really like are completely meaningless if the West feels like ignoring them at some point in the future.

I think we all knew that, but its great that you made it clear.

If you want an agreement with the full force of law you need AT LEAST the Secretary of State in the room.

You haven't got that? Crimea river.
 
Please show the treaty or other document that has the force of law.
Also it is the duty of the western world to spread human rights to countries of a lesser moral order.
OMG. straight out of the neocon playbook
 
OMG. straight out of the neocon playbook
Then that’s a good rule they had (even if their other rules were often screwed up)

I do not support going to war over this duty though.
 
you should look at the one source. it's Der Spiegle. The other is an interview.the last is documentation

You're promoting and justifying Russian agression against a sovereign country. Is that how you get yoir kicks?

Trump supporters on this board are constantly ourdoing themselves. This is just another example. Sickening.
 
If you want an agreement with the full force of law you need AT LEAST the Secretary of State in the room.
You haven't got that? Crimea river.
The document features statements by all six ministers in the Two-Plus-Four process – Shevardnadze (the host), Baker, Hurd, Dumas, Genscher, and De Maiziere of the GDR – (much of which would be repeated in their press conferences after the event), along with the agreed text of the final treaty on German unification. The treaty codified what Bush had earlier offered to Gorbachev – “special military status” for the former GDR territory. At the last minute, British and American concerns that the language would restrict emergency NATO troop movements there forced the inclusion of a “minute” that left it up to the newly unified and sovereign Germany what the meaning of the word “deployed” should be. Kohl had committed to Gorbachev that only German NATO troops would be allowed on that territory after the Soviets left, and Germany stuck to that commitment, even though the “minute” was meant to allow other NATO troops to traverse or exercise there at least temporarily. Subsequently, Gorbachev aides such as Pavel Palazhshenko would point to the treaty language to argue that NATO expansion violated the “spirit” of this Final Settlement treaty.
 
Please show the treaty or other document that has the force of law.

I'm with you there.

Also it is the duty of the western world to spread human rights to countries of a lesser moral order.

But this reeks of "white man's burden" and I reject it. Western nations can apply pressure, to spread their preferred values but nothing good ever came of overthrowing regimes in the hope their people would embrace democracy, freedom, capitalism or really anything.

What the West fails to get is that people are happier under moderately evil dictators like Gaddafi or Castro or Saddam, providing Western conveniences like sewers and electricity are getting rolled out at an acceptable pace. The West has to concentrate on economic development not Western values like free speech or democracy, or the West will be a minority in a world dominated by the East.
 
I'm with you there.



But this reeks of "white man's burden" and I reject it. Western nations can apply pressure, to spread their preferred values but nothing good ever came of overthrowing regimes in the hope their people would embrace democracy, freedom, capitalism or really anything.

What the West fails to get is that people are happier under moderately evil dictators like Gaddafi or Castro or Saddam, providing Western conveniences like sewers and electricity are getting rolled out at an acceptable pace. The West has to concentrate on economic development not Western values like free speech or democracy, or the West will be a minority in a world dominated by the East.
I am ok with this point of view as it results in liberation from oppressive governments (at least as a goal)
 
Then that’s a good rule they had (even if their other rules were often screwed up)
I do not support going to war over this duty though.
It led to war on Libya, war in Iraq ( the motivation was spreading democracy -the excuse was WMD)
and meddling in other states governments ( US presense at the Euromaidan)
 
The document features statements by all six ministers in the Two-Plus-Four process – Shevardnadze (the host), Baker, Hurd, Dumas, Genscher, and De Maiziere of the GDR – (much of which would be repeated in their press conferences after the event), along with the agreed text of the final treaty on German unification. The treaty codified what Bush had earlier offered to Gorbachev – “special military status” for the former GDR territory. At the last minute, British and American concerns that the language would restrict emergency NATO troop movements there forced the inclusion of a “minute” that left it up to the newly unified and sovereign Germany what the meaning of the word “deployed” should be. Kohl had committed to Gorbachev that only German NATO troops would be allowed on that territory after the Soviets left, and Germany stuck to that commitment, even though the “minute” was meant to allow other NATO troops to traverse or exercise there at least temporarily. Subsequently, Gorbachev aides such as Pavel Palazhshenko would point to the treaty language to argue that NATO expansion violated the “spirit” of this Final Settlement treaty.

Well I can't speak for the process of the other participants, but this "agreement" is not binding on the US. It's not a treaty in the constitutional sense, and any participants who thought it was were kidding themselves.
 
It led to war on Libya, war in Iraq ( the motivation was spreading democracy -the excuse was WMD)
and meddling n other states governments ( US presense at the Euromaidan)
Did you miss the second half of the post you quoted?
 
You're promoting and justifying Russian agression against a sovereign country. Is that how you get yoir kicks?
Trump supporters on this board are constantly ourdoing themselves. This is just another example. Sickening.
Amazing your leap of thoughts. No i dont "support" a Russian invasion. i get it because of prior NATO expansion, and the threat (to Russia) of NATO on it's land border -500 mile from Russia where land forces could be launched against Russia

what I support id Minsk - but on a much larger scale to rebalance the heel on the throat of Putin
which causes him to lash out
 
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