Madrid, 8 July 1997

Interview by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Mr Robin Cook INTERVIEWER: Foreign Secretary, do you feel that you have really witnessed a significant moment in history today? FOREIGN SECRETARY: It has certainly been a significant day in the history of NATO. First of all, I think one should recognise that NATO is not now the organisation it once was: there to defend us against lightning attack with tanks by the Warsaw Pact. NATO certainly fulfils a role of collective defence but it also, more importantly perhaps, provides the basis for security and stability throughout Europe and for confidence between its members. That is why it is right that we should extend that security and stability to the new democracies of Central Europe. It is a big step, it is a new population of some 60/70 million coming into NATO - a very much larger land mass. This is certainly a very big step for NATO to take. INTERVIEWER: Who is the common enemy? FOREIGN SECRETARY: I think that the issue that we are now addressing is how we tackle the common enemy of insecurity, distrust and lack of confidence. By having a common military organisation with an integrated command - a common working together - that makes sure that everybody can be confident that we are living in a continent in which every member shares the same military alliance and no member need fear anybody else. INTERVIEWER: There are though the calls in the London 'Times' and the 'New York Times' from George Cannon and indeed twenty US senators, who suggest that possibly this is a historic mistake; that the Western Alliance is extending itself beyond its natural borders and will regret it. What do you say to that? FOREIGN SECRETARY: I think they are living in the past. The Cold War is over, the borders of confrontation are finished, they are dissolved, they are gone. What is important is that we do provide stability to the central European region where, after all, instability in the past brought on two world wars. I think the other point is that the countries that we are admitting are not coming in because we have hatched some kind of conspiracy to bring them into NATO. They are coming in because they very earnestly wanted to come in and what right have these American writers from the past to say to them: 'No. You are making a mistake, you really shouldn't be asking to come in.'? INTERVIEWER: Is there a limit to NATO enlargement, can it ever include Russia for example? FOREIGN SECRETARY: That is a long way down the track. No politician who is wise would ever say 'never', but it is not in contemplation at the present time and certainly NATO would have to adapt still further before we can even contemplate that.