Posted on 04/03/2014 9:54:21 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Apr. 2 expressed concern about the U.S. presence in the Black Sea, saying Moscow contacted both Ankara and Washington over the issue amid ongoing tension between Russia and the West.
“We have noticed that recently U.S. military vessels on a number of occasions have extended their presence [in the Black Sea] beyond the established limits and these extensions at times failed to meet the rules of the Montreux Convention,” Lavrov said during a joint press conference with his Kazakh counterpart, Erlan Idrisov, in Moscow.
Lavrov was responding to a question over a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, USS Truxtun, which conducted joint exercises with Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces last month just a few hundred kilometers away from the annexed Crimean peninsula. The Truxtun has already left the Black Sea that had been scheduled before the Ukraine crisis.
“We pointed this out both to the U.S. and of course to Turkey, which is in control of the [Bosphorus] Strait [and the Dardanelles]. Our position is that all the paragraphs of the convention ought to be strictly adhered to. We will monitor it,” Lavrov said. The U.S. Navy is also sending another destroyer into the Black Sea in the coming days, NBC news reported, citing U.S. officials.
The USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer based in Rota, Spain, will travel to the Black Sea “in the next week or so,” according to one senior defense official. The ship will take part in to-be-scheduled exercises with allies in the region, he said.
Russia seeks answers over NATO activities
Lavrov also said Russia wanted answers from NATO on its activities in Eastern Europe after the alliance promised to beef up defenses for its eastern members.
Russia’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region last month has caused the deepest crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War, leading the West to impose sanctions and sparking fear President Vladimir Putin has territorial designs beyond the Black Sea peninsula with its Russian-majority population. NATO has ordered military planners to draft measures to reassure nervous Eastern European countries but stopped short of calls by Poland to base more forces there.
Lavrov said any increase in NATO’s permanent presence in Eastern Europe would violate a 1997 treaty on NATO-Russian cooperation. “We have addressed questions to the North Atlantic military alliance. We are not only expecting answers, but answers that will be based fully on respect for the rules we agreed on,” Lavrov said.
Foreign ministers from the alliance met this week to discuss responses to Russia’s Crimea takeover, including sending NATO soldiers and equipment to allies in Eastern Europe, holding more exercises, ensuring NATO’s rapid-reaction force could deploy more quickly, and reviewing NATO’s military plans. NATO military chiefs are concerned that an estimated 40,000 Russian forces near the Ukrainian border may signal plans by Putin to move beyond Crimea into eastern and southern Ukraine, which also have significant Russian-speaking populations.
Lavrov responded to criticism over the size of the force along Russia’s border with Ukraine by saying Moscow had the right to move troops on its territory and they would return to their permanent bases after military exercises. He did not give a timeline for when war games would end but said NATO’s concerns were overblown.
“It is necessary to de-escalate rhetoric which overshoots the mark and crosses into the unreasonable,” he said.
Russia should remove support for Cuba and Venezuela.
If the Russians want to know who is directly responsible fot the U.S. presence in the Black Sea look no futher than 1600 Pennysvania Ave NW...
Putin decided to tear up the Budapest Memorandum and annex the Crimea, NATO should now tear up the Montreax Convention and establish a permanent NATO presence in the Black Sea. Actions have consequences, if the rest of the world must now accept that Crimea is now part of Russia, Russia must now accept that the USN and other NATO navies will be now be based on a long term basis in the Black Sea.
It’s foolish for our metrosexual president to assert himself as we can be certain the ROI tells the US forces not to protect themselves. We’re courting a huge embarrassment.
They broke a treaty with The Ukraine over Crimea. By all rights, Russia should be returning The Ukraine’s nukes to them.
I believe the nukes were dismantled. And I doubt very much that there is anyone in Ukraine capable of using them without turning their own country into glass.
Not one of them predicted Russia taking Crimea and it wasn't even considered.
They said "0" about the coup by the Ukrainians.
Vlad may ending returning them, pointy end first...
Its a violation of his “Vlad Monroeavich Doctrine”.
The Montreux Convention is an agreement that dates back 1936 in the old “League of Nations”.
Who can enforce that?
They broke a treaty with The Ukraine over Crimea. By all rights, Russia should be returning The Ukraine’s nukes to them.
Russia did not just brake a treaty with Ukraine. They expropriated their land, stole fixed assets and pirated their ships. Plenty of grounds there to do whatever we want.
well, the Turks can. They control the Straits.
Congratulations 0bama, we are now slowly but surely becoming Russias “bitch”.
CC
Nobody wants a modern nuclear war because after all this is one globe.
Hey Vlad: now you’re interested in upholding laws and treaties? How come?
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