NATO's Georgia, Ukraine deal built on ambiguity

By Paul Taylor, European Affairs Editor - Analysis

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - The Americans are delighted, the Georgians and Ukrainians elated, the French and Germans happy, and the Russians not too angry.

NATO's hard-fought compromise -- declaring that the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine will one day join the alliance without setting them on an immediate path to membership -- was a masterpiece of creative ambiguity.

To the question "Will there be a buffer zone between Russia and the West?", NATO has answered "No" in the long term, but "Yes" in the short term. And the short term may last a while.

President Vladimir Putin voiced Moscow's concerns after his final NATO-Russia summit on Friday, saying he was pleased with the outcome but: "The appearance of a powerful military bloc on our borders would be taken in Russia as a direct threat."

Yet while pro-Western leaders in Kiev and Tbilisi rejoice at being officially embraced as future members, Moscow is reassured that NATO refrained from giving a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to two countries it considers in its sphere of influence.

In Russian eyes, everything is still to play for.

"What was important for us in the outcome of this debate was that we saw we have partners in Europe who earnestly want to listen to our opinion," a member of Putin's delegation said.

A NATO official said it was a perfect compromise: "Everyone goes home happy and the outcome doesn't destroy the prospect of a U.S.-Russian deal on arms control and cooperation."

U.S. President George W. Bush holds a final meeting with Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi at the weekend and they may agree on a broad framework for future relations.

"UNTHINKABLE"

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer denied there was any ambiguity about the communique, which welcomed Ukraine's and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations and said: "We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO."

"I stand to be corrected if this sentence leaves a shimmer of a doubt," he said.

European diplomats put a different spin on the outcome, saying they had not signed up to any date for a decision on MAP.

Participants said the United States pressed for a hard commitment to take the decision when NATO foreign ministers meet in December. Instead, the communique merely said the ministers would "make a first assessment of progress" then.

"It is unthinkable that the reservations will have fallen away by that meeting," an official from one of the reluctant west European states said.