9 Apr, 2022 13:37

NATO kept doors open for Russia – Clinton
Bill Clinton said he told Yeltsin and Putin that Moscow could join the military bloc one day

Former US President Bill Clinton says he told the Russian leadership that Moscow could one day join NATO. Clinton claims he made the pledge to the late President Boris Yeltsin, who governed Russia between 1991 and 1999, and then to his successor Vladimir Putin.

In late February, Putin recalled a conversation he had with Clinton about NATO in 2000, but his account painted a different picture. According to the Russian leader, he asked Clinton how the US would respond if Russia joined the US-led bloc and described Clinton’s reaction as “rather restrained.”

In an interview with British state broadcaster BBC in 2000, Putin refused to rule out Russia’s potential membership, but only “as an equal partner.”

“We left the door open for Russia’s eventual membership in NATO, something I made clear to Yeltsin and later confirmed to his successor, Vladimir Putin,” the former US president wrote in The Atlantic, in a piece published on Thursday.

In his op-ed, Clinton defended the bloc’s expansion eastward after the breakup of the Soviet Union. “If Russia chose to revert to ultranationalist imperialism, an enlarged NATO and a growing European Union would bolster the continent’s security,” he wrote.

Way to ramp it up Billy boy!