NATO: Russia violated Ukraine integrity

The Western military alliance of NATO has accused Russia of violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the comment on Sunday in an article for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

“And they flout the principle that every state is sovereign, and free to choose its own fate,” he wrote in reference to Moscow.

Non-NATO member Ukraine’s policy on joining the alliance has changed over the past decade, but cooperation between the two has “grown steadily stronger as a result,” Rasmussen also said.

Tensions between the Western powers and Moscow heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16, in which nearly 97 percent of voters in Crimea said yes to reunion with Russia.

On March 21, President Putin signed into law documents that officially made the Black Sea peninsula part of the Russian territory despite condemnation from the West and the new Ukrainian government.

The move sparked angry reactions from the United States and the European Union, both imposing punitive measures against a number of Russian officials and authorities in Crimea.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the country has absolutely no intention of crossing into Ukraine.

“We have absolutely no intention and no interests in crossing the Ukrainian border,” Lavrov told Russian state television in an interview on Saturday.

HN/AB/SL

Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/03/30/356572/nato-chief-blasts-russia-on-ukraine/

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