VLADIVOSTOK. Nov 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The rearmament of the Georgian army may be linked to the possible use force to resolve territorial issues, Russian Vice Prime Minister, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.
"The fact that the Georgian authorities have been actively rearming the country with the help of potential candidates and just-adopted NATO members is alarming," the minister said in an interview with the Voskresnoye Vremya TV program on Russia's First Channel on Sunday evening.
"[Georgia's] military budget has increased by five or six times over the past two or three years. We are concerned over the fact, bearing in mind that there are two uncontrolled territories in Georgia. People who were regularly undergoing aggression and ethnic cleansings in the XX century live there. These plans, as well as possible force scenario to resolve domestic issues, are alarming," he said.
Asked about the term for the deployment of Russian of peacekeepers in the Georgian-South Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone, Ivanov said that "They will stay there for the time required to resolve the conflicts peacefully, what is proved by international precedents."
Commenting on the Georgian and Ukrainian possibility to enter NATO, the minister said that any independent country has the right to decide on the accession to any political and military organization.
"Do we threaten Georgia or Ukraine? Everybody acknowledges that we do not. Then why should the situation that may result in the presence of NATO military facilities near our borders be created?" Ivanov said.
Russia was assured that "there will be no military facilities and nothing will threaten Russia from the military point of view" ten years ago, the period of the first NATO eastwards expansion, he said. "We know what happened later. We were deceived then," the minister said.
Now Russia cannot believe statements that the accession of new members to NATO will have no serious consequences, he said. "This would be irresponsible," Ivanov added.