Russian leader Vladimir Putin said in him interview Tucker Carlson said this week that he asked US President Bill Clinton in 2000 whether Russia could join NATO, and that while Mr Clinton personally said he was open to the idea, his advisers said that politically He said he found it impossible.
“I asked him, ‘Bill, if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen?’ Suddenly he said, ‘That’s interesting.’ I think so,” Putin said. the president recalled.
“But in the evening, when we met for dinner, he said: ‘You know, I talked to the team, but no, that’s not possible now,'” Putin said. continued.
“If he had said yes, the process of reconciliation would have started, and if we had seen the sincere wishes on the part of our partners, it might have happened in the end,” the Russian dictator said. I thought about it.
Given that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established to counter the expansionist Soviet Union and continues to exist primarily as a counterweight to the successor Russian government, it would certainly be possible if Russia were allowed to join. It would have been a historic event. There is some historical evidence to suggest that the idea was floated during the period Putin advocated.
In an interview in November 2021 Told by uk guardianFormer British Secretary of Defense George Robertson NATO Secretary General Putin told a story similar to the one he told Tucker Carlson from 1999 to 2003.
According to Robertson, Putin met in Brussels shortly after becoming Russian president in 2000 and expressed his desire to become “part of a secure, stable and prosperous Western world, which Russia was not able to be a part of at the time.” It is said that he did.
“When are you going to invite us to join NATO?” he recalled Putin asking.
Mr Robertson said his reaction was: They are applying to join NATO. ”
Putin countered that he had no intention of “lining up with many unimportant countries.”
robertson I remembered The same anecdote about a meeting in Brussels foreign policy He also said that in previous talks in Moscow, Putin was very keen on making Russia “part of Western Europe.”
“He said to me, “I want to restart our relationship with NATO.” That’s what we hope for,” Robertson said.
In the interview, Robertson said that President Clinton is also keen to rebuild relations with Russia and that NATO, an agreement that requires Russia and NATO to resolve differences through negotiation rather than armed conflict, said・He stated that he cooperated in negotiations on the law establishing Russia. The NATO-Russia Establishment Act also required NATO to avoid deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, a long-standing concern of the Russian government.
A few months before this conversation, Robertson recalled, Putin had given a BBC interview with David Frost, saying, “If Russia’s views are to be considered as those of an evil partner, then when will we join NATO?” He said he would consider it.
“Russia is part of European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country being isolated from Europe and what we often call the civilized world,” Putin told Frost in 2000. .
Putin’s opinions on Western culture have changed dramatically since then. I’m considering it now It’s weak, perverse, and truly “diabolical.” A big part of President Putin’s nationalist political message is his desire to return former Soviet satellites to Russian territory to protect them from harmful Western culture.
Putin’s urge to gain NATO membership has clearly evaporated for several reasons. He was reportedly not that serious about applying in the first place, as his comments to Robertson about not wanting to line up behind “unimportant countries” suggest.
of guardian He suggested that Putin’s idea of joining NATO ended definitively with Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which he viewed as a Western plot to undermine Russia’s influence. He was also dissatisfied with NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe.
Robertson said. F.P. After Russia attacked Georgia in 2008, President Putin firmly opposed NATO membership, and the rise of Russian-backed separatist extremists in Ukraine in 2014 permanently ended the idea. Ta. NATO and Russia’s councils suspended meetings shortly after the separatist conflict in Ukraine broke out in 2014.
Long before Putin’s rule, the Soviet Union suggestion The Soviet Union was not particularly circumspect about its desire to weaken NATO from within and use its membership to drive American forces out of Europe. NATO was not particularly polite in rejecting their proposals.
