In dangerously provocative remarks, NATO Deputy Secretary-General Camille Grand yesterday pronounced that NATO would absolutely not provide Russia assurances that nuclear weapons will not be placed in Sweden and Finland – the latter sharing an 830 mile border with Russia – which have applied to join NATO. “Every country is free in the nuclear field to deploy or not to deploy such weapons. We are not talking about setting up some principle restrictions on the possible actions of the alliance,” the NATO official told Swiss broadcaster RTS in an interview published on June 7.
Grand, a French diplomat who came to NATO after a lengthy stint as the Director of the rabidly Anglophile strategic think tank, the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), added: “Every NATO member-country decides this issue sovereignly. And now there is no such question. But I do not think that in the current situation it is necessary to give Russia any guarantees regarding our military posture in the region.”
