Moscow, Sept. 19. The Russian president, Dimitri Medvediev, said today that his government does not seek to hide behind a new "iron curtain", and accused the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) for causing the war in Georgia.
"We are in effect being pushed into a path that is not based on alliances with other civilized countries, but in an autonomous development, behind thick walls, behind an iron curtain," the president said today during a meeting with various groups civil society.
However, the president stressed that "this is not our way. For us it makes no sense to return to the past. We have made our choice. "
Medvedied also said that the recent armed conflict with Georgia proved that NATO is unable to generate an atmosphere of security in Europe, so it is necessary to create another system that is really effective on the continent.
"What NATO protected?, What assurances NATO? NATO only provoked the conflict, and nothing more than that, "said the Russian president.
Distortion "terrible"
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry denounced the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, "terribly distorted" the facts during his speech this week on war with Georgia.
It also accused Washington of having blocked the attendance of representatives of the separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to the UN General Assembly, next Tuesday in New York, but ruled out any possibility of war with the United States, a country with which aims for what he called "positive relations".
For its part, NATO rejected the accusation that Russian-led war in the Caucasus, and felt that to express their solidarity with Georgia can not be considered a "provocation."
At the end of a meeting in London with European ministers of defense, the secretary general of the Atlantic military alliance, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer denied that the agency should rethink its military strategy after what happened in Georgia, a country to which he reiterated his support.
Meanwhile, the U.S. president, George W. Bush, announced that he will call on Russia to fulfill its commitments to withdraw from Georgian territory, while the European Union said that the aid of 500 million euros to Tbilisi will not be used for military purposes.
