The Baltic drive

The Baltic states said on June 16 that they would continue their drive to join NATO despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that admitting them into the alliance could be highly destabilizing. "Russian comments won't make any difference to us. Our goal to join NATO won't change," Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar said in a telephone interview on June 16, a day after Putin repeated Russia's opposition during a keynote speech in Germany. During a regularly scheduled meeting in Estonia Friday, the three Baltic premiers, including Latvia's Andris Berzins and Lithuania's Andrius Kubilius, also signed a joint communiquй where, among other things, they also reasserted their desire to join NATO. Since they regained independence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have made NATO membership a top priority. Moscow has been particularly outspoken about criticism any enlargement of NATO that would include the Baltic states, which sit on Russia's northwester border. The Kremlin says Baltic NATO membership would be seen as a threat to Russia. Estonia's prime minister said he didn't believe Moscow sincerely saw NATO as a military threat, but simply wanted to dissuade the alliance from expanding because it feared losing influence in areas once ruled by the Soviet Union. Speaking in Germany on January 16, the Russian president reiterated his country's opposition to an expanded NATO, saying that expanding to the Baltic states could end up destabilizing not only European but also world security. NATO says the door to the Baltic states is open, but that they aren't yet ready militarily to join. The Baltics say they'll be ready to be invited into the alliance by 2002, though NATO hasn't said when they might be asked to join.