Russia says: “NATO is playing with fire”

Foreign Russian Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Georgia against using NATO membership as a tool to regain control over its rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away in the 1990s and enjoy Russian support.

According to Reuters - Earlier in the week, Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev maintained pressure on NATO not to grant membership to Ukraine and Georgia, saying that it would undermine European security.

NATO leaders meeting in Bucharest from April 2-4 are expected to consider requests by the two former Soviet republics’ pro-Western leaders to put their countries on the path to membership.

Georgia, whose pro-Western leaders want to move out of Moscow’s orbit, seeks membership in NATO and the European Union. Ukraine also hopes the NATO summit in Bucharest next week will grant it a roadmap towards joining the alliance.

“The population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia cannot think of joining NATO,” Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov said after meeting his colleagues from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. “In such a complicated issue it’s a dangerous game to play with fire.”

Lavrov criticized further NATO expansion and characterized the western military alliance as a remnant of the Cold War.

The United States is backing both bids. But France, Germany and some other European nations say such a move would be untimely.

In Brussels, a spokesman for NATO said the alliance was aware of Russia’s concerns about expansion and that as an alliance NATO is open to discussing them in an open manner.