Russia to offer NATO Afghan transit at summit

By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin will offer NATO transit rights through Russia for supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan at a bilateral summit dominated by the alliance's expansion plans, a Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Putin, who hands over powers to a successor on May 7 after eight years in power, will fly to Bucharest on Thursday to attend some events at the NATO summit and address a meeting of the Russia-NATO council on Friday.

"We expect some interesting achievements concerning transits for the purposes of the Afghanistan mission," a Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a telephone conference.

"In general, we speak about the non-military transit of cargoes for the needs of the Afghanistan operation," he added. "Details will be known after the council's meeting."

The Russian offer, which will shorten some of the supply routes for the NATO-controlled 43,000-strong U.N. force, comes at a summit where Russia will try to persuade the alliance against granting a membership roadmap for Ukraine and Georgia.

Russia views the Membership Action Plans (MAP) for its neighbors as unfriendly acts which would bring NATO dangerously close to its borders.

Peskov indicated that any decision by the NATO summit on the MAPs would not affect the Afghanistan transit offer but made clear that in the long run this could affect bilateral ties.

"Cooperation on Afghanistan is a different dimension," he said. "But, NATO enlargement policy touches upon the future of the activities of the (Russia-NATO) council," he added.

"Its work is based on mutual confidence, reciprocity ... And if one dimension is missing the whole system will malfunction."

CONCILIATORY TONE

Peskov's remarks sounded more conciliatory than the Kremlin's earlier harsh rhetoric over NATO's expansion plans.

Putin said in February that if Ukraine joined NATO and accepted foreign military bases, Moscow could re-target its missiles at the country.

In another sign of a more conciliatory position, Peskov said Russia was not going to recognize Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgian suspicions that Russia seeks to annex the two regions, which broke away after wars in early 1990s, is one of its motivations for seeking protection from Moscow in NATO.

Georgia was outraged earlier this month when the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, urged the government to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia if Tbilisi joined NATO.