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Ukraine and Georgia

German Foreign Minister Wary of NATO Expansion

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Wednesday that there is no reason to push ahead with putting Ukraine and Georgia on the path to NATO membership. His statement indicates that Germany is preparing to oppose the US at next week's NATO summit.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has indicated his opposition to a push by the United States to speed up Ukraine and Georgia's membership of NATO.

Speaking in the German parliament, or Bundestag, on Wednesday, Steinmeier said that there was "no reason now, seven months after the NATO summit, to go beyond the decisions made in Bucharest." At that meeting in April, France and Germany prevented the Western military alliance from offering the two former Soviet states the Membership Action Plan which would have put them on track to eventual membership.

The two countries were, however, assured that they would one day be included in NATO, much to the fury of Russia, which perceives such a move as proof that the alliance is encroaching on its traditional sphere of influence. The European reluctance to rush ahead with including the two states has, if anything, increased in the light of Georgia's war with Russia in August.

Steinmeier, who is the Social Democrats (SPD) candidate for the chancellorship in next year's elections, was speaking a week before NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels to review Ukraine and Georgia's progress. According to media reports, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been on the phone with Paris, Berlin and other European capitals in an attempt to change the Europeans' minds. She would be able to rely on the backing of many Eastern European countries that are wary of an increasingly nationalistic Russia.

German government spokesman Thomas Steg echoed Steinmeier's statement on Wednesday. He said that Chancellor Angela Merkel still stood by the decisions made at Bucharest and that the time was "not yet ripe" for Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

Steinmeier also said that the new US administration under President-elect Barack Obama offered the chance of a "fundamental renewal of the trans-Atlantic relationship." He told the parliament that "from Janauary there will be a partner available in Washington with whom we share common visions on many issues."

smd -- with wire reports