US Defence Secretary Robert Gates reassured Russia on Saturday that the Pentagon will not put military bases in ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine, but he criticised Moscow for arms sales to US foes Iran and Syria.
Speaking at the Military Academy of General Staff, at the end of a tense two-day visit to Moscow, Gates said there would be no US bases in either Georgia or Ukraine. The Pentagon would not station troops there ""even if we were to be invited," Gates told Russian officers.
The issue is of high sensitivity in Moscow, which has seen its longtime dominance of neighbouring countries severely diminished since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Both Georgia and Ukraine now have pro-Western leaderships that desire to join Nato.
However, Gates criticised Moscow's weapons sales, accusing Iran of having "made no secret of its expansionist ambitions," and claiming that Syria is a conduit for weapons to the Lebanese guerrillas in Lebanon.
"The best way to describe it, is that at the end we decided to agree to disagree," Gates said of the issue, which was raised during meetings with his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov and other officials.