Medvedev slams dangerous NATO Georgia exercises

"I think this is a wrong decision, a dangerous decision," Medvedev said at a news conference with visiting Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.

Medvedev warned the exercises could cause "different kinds of complications" and could threaten a recent thaw in Russia-NATO relations, which were badly strained after Russia fought a brief war with Georgia last August.

"This decision appears to be short-sighted, unpartner-like... Such decisions are disappointing and do not facilitate the resumption of full-scale contacts between the Russian Federation and NATO," Medvedev said.

"We will follow what happens there in the most thorough manner and take one or another decision if need be," he said.

Russia’s NATO mission in Brussels had previously said it would ask the alliance to postpone the exercises.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced earlier this week that it would hold exercises in Georgia from May 6 to June 1 to improve cooperation between the alliance and partner countries.

The exercises, which have been planned since the spring of 2008, are to involve about 1,300 people from 19 NATO and partner countries and will be held at a training centre 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Tbilisi.

Moscow has been extremely wary of any cooperation between NATO and Georgia, a former Soviet republic whose pro-Western government has pushed hard to join the alliance.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war last August over two Moscow-backed breakaway regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia later recognized as independent states.

NATO froze high-level contacts with Russia in protest, but recently decided to resume them. A meeting of the so-called NATO-Russia Council is expected in late May or early June.