July 6, 2008
Civil Georgia

President Dmitry Medvedev will raise Moscow’s opposition to Georgia and Ukraine NATO membership at a meeting with his U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush, in Japan on a sideline of G8 summit, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko said.

“Disagreement persist between Russia and the United States on ‘European arena’ – these are [disagreements] over Kosovo and conventional weapons control in the context of CFE [Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe], as well as over plans to push Georgia and Ukraine into NATO,” Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted Prikhodko as saying on July 6.

“For us this is still a ‘red line’ for further development of relations with the Alliance and with the United States in particular,” he added. “I think that the Russian President will reiterated this [position] in talks with George Bush during the meeting in frames of G8 summit.”