Lord John Robertson, (NATO Secretary General from 1999 to 2003)- In his 2014, address to the Brookings Institute in the USA strongly advocated that Putin and Russia be admitted to NATO saying it would reinforce the, “liberal values” of NATO. Seeking to justify his position he intimated troubles in Ukraine and Crimea should not be a bar against Russian membership.

Lord John Robertson, (NATO Secretary General from 1999 to 2003)– In his 2014, address to the Brookings Institute in the USA strongly advocated that Putin and Russia be admitted to NATO saying it would reinforce the, “liberal values” of NATO. Seeking to justify his position he intimated troubles in Ukraine and Crimea should not be a bar against Russian membership. Rejecting any criticism Robertson said that he envisioned an expanded NATO that was just as effective, while involving countries that at the moment do not want to be part of the transatlantic organisation. He went on saying, “there’s no security in Europe, unless there’s an eventual perspective of an organisation that says, “we stand for values, stand for liberal values, and that has to include Russia”.

Remembering his first ever meeting with Putin, who was not yet installed as the Russian, President he said, “we had good relations. I stood beside him at a press conference on the 28th of May, 2002, after the meeting of heads of state and government at the inaugural meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, flanked by himself and by Berlusconi and I just want to say what Putin actually said in reply to a question. In other words, this was not a scripted comment by him, and I think it’s very important at this time, 14 years later that you hear again what he said.

He said: “Russia always had a crucial role in world affairs. The problem for our country has been, however, that over a very long period of time a situation arose in which Russia was on one side and the other side was practically whole… the whole of the rest of the world. Nothing good came of that confrontation between us and the rest of the world. We certainly gained nothing from it.” And he then went to say: “Russia is and wants to be and remains part of the civilized community of nations. There is nothing to be gained if our voice is not heard, and we are determined for our national interest to be taken account on.”

Robertson summarised his contribution saying: “Russia is prepared to act in accordance with international law, international rules, in the course of a civilized dialogue for the achieving of common and joint ends, and those ends have been set out very clearly in the document we signed off today. I think President Putin and the Russian people need to be reminded of these words, what they signed up to, what was the joint commitment. And they should be reminded of it regularly and constantly.”