Russia has expelled two Canadian diplomats working for Nato´s ...

Russia has expelled two Canadian diplomats working for Nato´s ... May, 2009 NATO-RUSSIA May, 6 Russia has expelled two Canadian diplomats working for Nato's Moscow office in response to an "unfriendly act" by the military alliance. Last week Nato expelled two Russian envoys from its headquarters in Brussels, reportedly due to spying. Nato said in a statement that the Russian move was unjustified and "very unfortunate and counterproductive". The diplomatic spat came as Nato began military exercises in Georgia, seen by Russia as a "provocation". Ottawa's ambassador to Russia, Ralph Lysyshyn, was summoned to the foreign ministry where he was told Moscow felt it had been forced into the move. "In response to the unfriendly act on Nato's part... the Russian side has taken the forced decision to revoke the diplomatic accreditation" of the two Nato staff, a foreign ministry statement said. The Canadian diplomats being expelled are the director of the Nato information office in Moscow, Isabelle Francois, and her deputy. The Canadian embassy in Moscow said it regretted Russia's decision which came, a spokesman said, just as "Canada and Nato allies have been seeking to re-engage Russia". In Brussels, Nato said: "The Russian measure is very unfortunate and counterproductive to our efforts to restore our dialogue and cooperation with Russia. "Thus Nato very much regrets the Russian action and does not consider there to be any justification for it." The latest round of tit-for-tat expulsions stems from a spy scandal in Estonia in which thousands of pages of sensitive data were handed to Russian agents. Exercises begin Cooperative Longbow 09, a Nato-led coordination and command exercise, began on Wednesday outside the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. A further exercise, Cooperative Lancer 09, is planned before 1 June. About 220 troops are involved in the first exercise and 400 in the second, and neither involves tanks, Reuters news agency reports. Nato says both exercises were planned before last summer's war in Georgia. Four non-Nato states originally due to take part have pulled out. Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Serbia all have close links to Russia. /BBC News/ GEORGIA May, 7 A series of Nato military exercises has begun in Georgia, amid angry condemnation from Russia. Soldiers from 18 countries are taking part in the drills at a Georgian army base close to the capital, Tbilisi. Russia, which fought a war against Georgia last year, has condemned the exercises, which President Dmitry Medvedev called "an overt provocation". On Tuesday Georgia put down a mutiny by soldiers, and claimed it had uncovered a Russian-backed coup plot. Relations between Nato and Russia were supposed to have been on the mend after last year's war in Georgia, but have now taken a dramatic turn for the worse, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow says. 1 Russia said on Wednesday that it was expelling two Canadian diplomats working for Nato's Moscow office in response to what it terms an "unfriendly act" by the military alliance. Last week Nato expelled two Russian envoys from its headquarters in Brussels, reportedly due to spying. More than 1,000 soldiers will take part in the Nato exercises over a period of more than three weeks. They are taking place close to areas where Russian troops are stationed in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. Georgia's defence ministry said Nato would spend the next few days setting up a staff headquarters at the Vaziani base outside the capital Tbilisi. The first exercise, running until 19 May, is described as a "command post" exercise focusing on co-ordinating Nato procedures in a crisis-response situation. Then a second, larger, exercise, based on peacekeeping training, will run till 3 June. Nato has denied the exercises are aimed at Russia or the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "This issue has been totally misused, I think, by all parties. Georgia is not the object of this exercise, Georgia is the host of this exercise like Armenia was the year before," Nato spokesman James Appathurai told BBC World Service. "The Russians can portray it the way they want... They're not the only ones to misuse this exercise for political purposes. "I can tell you the secretary-general has spoken to the leadership in Georgia to express his concern that they also are misusing this exercise for political purposes." Armenia, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Moldova - Russian allies which had been invited by Nato to participate in the Georgian manoeuvres - have all pulled out. Nato has promised eventual membership to Georgia, but has given it no target date for entry. Russia is vehemently opposed to Georgian membership. The mutiny on Tuesday in Georgia is likely to reinforce in the minds of many Nato members that now is not the time to commit the alliance to the defence of such an unstable country, says the BBC's world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds. The rebellion erupted on Tuesday morning, when soldiers at a tank battalion began disobeying orders, Georgian officials said. "The plan was to stage a large-scale mutiny in Tbilisi and to take steps against the sovereignty of Georgia and the Georgian government's European and Euro-Atlantic integration," said President Mikhail Saakashvili. The interior ministry had earlier said it was part of a Russian-linked coup attempt to kill the president - an allegation described by Russia's envoy to Nato as "mad". /BBC News/ RUSSIA-EU SUMMIT May, 22 Russia alarmed over new EU pact Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned the European Union not to turn a proposed partnership with former Soviet countries against Moscow. Mr Medvedev was speaking at the end of a Russia-EU summit held against a background of deep divisions over security, trade and energy supplies. He also signalled a new gas crisis may lie ahead, suggesting Ukraine lacks the money to pay for gas Russia provides. A row over prices severely affected supplies to Europe in January. The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says divisions between Russia and the European Union seem to be growing ever wider, and this latest summit, held in the far east of Russia, made that abundantly clear, with little sign of progress on any significant topic. 2 "We would not want the Eastern Partnership to turn into partnership against Russia. There are various examples," Mr Mevedev told a news conference at the end of the summit. "I would simply not want this partnership to consolidate certain individual states, which are of an anti-Russian bent, with other European states," he said. Moscow has accused the 27-member bloc of creating new dividing lines in Europe by offering closer ties to six former Soviet republics. The Eastern Partnership Initiative aims to forge close political and economic ties in exchange for democratic reforms. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have signed up to the initiative, which seeks to bolster stability in the region. However it does not offer the prospect of eventual EU membership. Divisive issue On the divisive issue of energy supplies, President Medvedev raised questions about whether Ukraine can afford billions of dollars to top up its gas stocks. "We have doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay," he said. He also proposed that Moscow and the EU should help Ukraine get a loan for gas payments. Ukraine has denied there is any problem. Russia supplies 42% of EU gas imports. Its decision to cut all gas to Ukraine - a vital transit country - meant that many EU member states also lost their supplies of gas for two weeks in January. Speaking in Khabarovsk, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned there should be no more disruptions to gas supplies from Russia. /BBC News/ NORTH KOREA May, 25 North Korea conducts nuclear test North Korea says it has staged a "successful" underground nuclear test, prompting international condemnation. The state says it was more powerful than the previous one in October 2006. A number of external agencies have confirmed a powerful explosion took place, suspected to be associated with a nuclear test. US President Barack Obama described the North Korean action as a threat to international peace. Crisis talks were being held in South Korea. An emergency session of the UN Security Council is being convened by Russia, which currently occupies the council's rotating presidency. BBC world affairs correspondent David Loyn says North Korea appears to have moved from a posture of negotiation to confrontation over the nuclear issue. An official communique read out on North Korean state radio said another round of underground nuclear testing had been "successfully conducted... as part of measures to enhance the Republic's self-defensive nuclear deterrent in all directions". The test would "contribute to safeguard the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism", the communique said. The North gave no details of the test location, but South Korean officials said that a seismic tremor was detected in the north-eastern part around the town of Kilju - the site of North Korea's first nuclear test. The US Geological Survey said a 4.7-magnitude quake was detected at 0054 GMT, 10km (six miles) underground. Geological agencies in both South Korea and the US said the tremor indicated a nuclear explosion. 3 Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying said its systems had detected a blast of "between 10 and 20 kilotons" - making it much bigger than the 2006 test, which the US said was less than a kiloton. Hours after the explosion North Korea test-fired three short-range missiles, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Pyongyang has so far not commented on Yonhap's reports. The US state department said it was still analysing the available data from the test. But in a strongly worded statement, President Obama said the North's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatened peace and was in "blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council". A spokesman for the South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said the test was a "grave challenge" to international non-proliferation efforts, while Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said any nuclear test by the North would be "unacceptable". Both have formed crisis management teams, and said they would ask for action from the UN Security Council. The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said he condemned the test "in the strongest terms" and said it would "undermine prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula". South Korea's stock market fell 4% on the news, over fears that regional tensions would rise. The North says it remains under military threat from its historic rival, South Korea, and South Korea's allies, primarily the US - citing such examples as the annual US-South Korean military exercises undertaken in South Korea. It says it is entitled to retain a military deterrent. /BBC News/ North Atlantic Council Statement on North Korea The North Atlantic Council strongly condemns the announced North Korean (DPRK) nuclear and ballistic missile tests on 25 May 2009. These irresponsible actions by Pyongyang pose a serious challenge to peace, security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and are being universally condemned by the international community. This provocative action of Pyongyang’s occurs during a period when the international community is seriously debating important new steps in global arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. Once again, the Alliance calls upon Pyongyang to fulfil its international obligations. The NAC urges North Korea to implement fully all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and to eliminate its nuclear weapons and related programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. We call upon Pyongyang to refrain from any other actions which could contribute to raising tensions and to restore dialogue within the Six-Party framework. The Alliance will continue to carefully monitor developments with deep concern. /NATO website/ May, 26 North Korea 'fires more missiles' North Korea has fired two more missiles, hours after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned its nuclear test, South Korean reports say. The communist state fired two short-range missiles off an east-coast base, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an official. The move came as UN diplomats began work on a resolution to punish North Korea for its underground nuclear test. Diplomats said they were seeking "tough measures", including further sanctions. At least three missile tests accompanied Monday's nuclear test. Those on Tuesday involved one ground-to-ship missile and one ground-to-air missile, Yonhap said. 4 Earlier, North Korea, in a statement carried by its official news agency KCNA, said it was clear America's "hostile policy" towards it had not changed. "Our army and people are fully ready for battle... against any reckless US attempt for a pre-emptive attack," it said in a piece criticising US moves to relocate its fighter jets. South Korea, meanwhile, announced it would become a full member of a US-led initiative aimed at controlling trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, despite warnings from Pyongyang. /BBC News/ May, 27 N Korea threatens military action North Korea says it has abandoned the truce that ended the Korean war, amid rising tension in the region. It blamed its decision on South Korea joining a US-led initiative to search ships for nuclear weapons. It said the South's actions were a "declaration of war", and pledged to attack if its ships were stopped. Meanwhile, South Korean news reports say that steam has been seen coming from a plant at the North's main nuclear facility, a sign that it has made good on its threat to restart efforts to make weapons-grade plutonium. The United Nations Security Council is working on a strong resolution condemning North Korea's actions, including possible punitive measures. In a statement to the North's official news agency, KCNA, the military warned that it no longer considered itself bound by the terms of a truce which ended the war between the two Koreas. That agreement has preserved a tense peace for more than five decades. /BBC News/ 5