UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A key Czech leader said Friday that a resurgent Russia has begun testing the West and warned that Ukraine's strategic Crimea peninsula could become a target.
Tomas Pojar, deputy foreign minister of the Czech Republic, said Russia's strong objection to U.S. missile defense bases in his country and Poland and recent events in Georgia clearly indicate Moscow's opposition to Western influence in the former Soviet Union's sphere of influence.
"We are being tested," he told a group of U.N. journalists. "We should be careful. We should be firm."
Russia drew harsh criticism from the U.S. and Europe for recognizing two separatist Georgian territories as independent states following a short but devastating war that left Russian troops in control of a key Georgian Black Sea port and other locations deep inside Georgia.
The conflict followed an escalation of incidents by pro-Russian separatists from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It was sparked by Georgia's attempt to use force to retake control of South Ossetia.
Pojar raised the possibility of confrontations with Moscow elsewhere.
"I think that we would not be surprised if in the future similar events, for example, develop in Crimea," he said. "We hope that it is not going to happen, but we think that the situation there is not very stable, and to provoke more instability would probably not be that difficult."
The Crimea peninsula on the Black Sea, once a jewel of Russia's empire, was a beloved tourist destination in the Soviet era and home to the proud Soviet naval base in the port of Sevastopol. But in 1954, control of the Crimea was handed to the then Soviet republic of Ukraine. After the 1991 Soviet breakup, it remained part of independent Ukraine, with an agreement allowing Russia to keep it's naval base there.
Pojar said the Crimea could become "some new frozen or unfrozen conflict because of the situation on the ground, because of the political demographic and (Russian) military presence in Crimea."
The United States and the European Union should realize "the strategic importance of stability and prosperity in Ukraine and in the whole of Caucuses," he said.
Pojar spoke to reporters as Vice president Dick Cheney started a tour of three ex-Soviet republics — Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia — that are wary of Russia's intentions.
The Czech government signed a bilateral treaty in July allowing the U.S. to build a radar base near Prague as part of a proposed U.S. missile defense system that has been harshly criticized by Russia.
Pojar said there is "significant opposition" to the treaty in parliament but the government expects it to be ratified by the end of the year. |