NATO won't discuss 'Open Door Policy' in dialogue with Russia on Wednesday: US diplomat

After nearly eight hours of talks held in Geneva during the first formal US-Russia meeting on resolving the Ukraine crisis and defusing tensions, US Ambassador to  NATO has said that not a single official for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is ready to discuss the ‘Open Door Policy’ with Moscow in talks scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 12. This comes as the US officials had iterated that the demands Russia made in the two draft treaties aimed at simmering down the escalating conflict with Kyiv at the border were a “non-starter,” according to the transcripts of the statements released. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin had demanded legally binding security guarantees from NATO that would commit NATO members not to further enlarge the alliance and remove the military deployment from Eastern Europe, which Kremlin decries as a ‘threat’ to its own national security. 

But the NATO alliance on Tuesday assertively clarified that it will not reverse its long-standing ‘Open Door Policy’ for Moscow and that Putin cannot dictate NATO policies. NATO had earlier pushed for Ukraine on a membership track, and on Russia’s demands iterated that its doors have remained ‘open’ to any European nation, or ally to undertake the commitments and obligations of membership.

NATO will not drop its 'open door' policy: US diplomat

“North Atlantic Treaty Organization will not drop its 'open door' policy on membership, and will pay no mind to Russia's request to limit troop and weapons deployments in countries which joined the bloc after 1997,” Julianne Smith, US ambassador to NATO said, according to Russia’s State-affiliated news source Sputnik. America "will not allow anyone to slam NATO's open-door policy shut,” she insisted, as Russia-Ukraine talks to defuse military tensions hit a deadlock. 

Smith stressed that NATO “is not going to be rolling back time and returning to a completely different era where we had a very different alliance that was smaller and a very different footprint.” She then added, that the US has been operating with NATO, “in today's world, as it stands today.” Refusing any prospects of talks on the NATO policy front, Smith said, “I don't think anyone inside the NATO alliance is interested in going back in time to revisit an era where NATO looked a lot different than it does today.” 

Clarifying to Russia about the same, NATO in its statement said: “NATO’s ‘Open Door Policy’ is based on Article 10 of its founding treaty. Any decision to invite a country to join the Alliance is taken by the North Atlantic Council on the basis of consensus among all Allies. No third country has a say in such deliberations.” 

The alliance reiterated that its ongoing enlargement process poses no threat to any country and that it is aimed at promoting stability and cooperation, and building Europe that stands for free, united in peace, democracy, and common values. While Russia has repeatedly targeted NATO for involving the Baltic states in the treaty, NATO reiterates that the countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina were invited to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) and it was the sole decision of the allies. Georgia and Ukraine will become members of NATO in the future, NATO informed, adding that it is among the aspirant countries. 

NATO to invoke Article 5 of Washington Treaty should Russia attack?

Think tanks, however, believe that in an event of Russian invasion, the Baltic states would be defeated even before the North Atlantic Council would be in a position to invoke Article 5 Washington Treaty. The article outlines the collective defense mechanism that states any attack against one NATO ally is considered as an attack on the alliance, and therefore, NATO will take collective defense measures to counter the threat. 

The treaty was invoked for the first time in history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States and during the situation in Syria. In the wake of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Russia fears Allies will invoke the principle of Article 5. 

Ahead of a meeting with Russia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared that the prospect of a new conflict in Europe is “real” and “imminent” pointing at Russia’s military troop concentration, approximately 100,000, expanding military capabilities on the frontier with Kyiv. Russia and NATO are expected to hold a dialogue at the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council today, Jan. 12, and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting scheduled for Jan. 13. “Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military buildup in and around Ukraine” has serious implications for European security and stability,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a presser. 

In separate televised remarks on America’s CNN cable network, Smith clarified, ”At this point, let me be very, very clear - no one is suggesting that we alter NATO policy on enlargement.”  "The doors remain open. No one has the right to kick the door shut. And any decision about enlargement will continue to rest between the NATO alliance and the country in question," Smith outlined. About the enlargement issue, she highlighted, "frankly, I don't see a lot of compromises.” The US diplomat will attend the Russia-NATO Council on Wednesday in Brussels.

"All the allies are committed to engaging in a dialogue with Russia tomorrow. But simultaneously, the allies are all united in messaging to the Russians that should they decide to invade Ukraine further, they would face massive consequences of NATO and also from the EU as well," she stressed.