There is no transcript that includes the question-and-answer session that followed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's comments. But they can be heard here. Excerpts from Stoltenberg's closing statement are featured below.
That the NATO foreign ministers meeting was held in a member state bordering Belarus and Russia at this critical juncture is significant in its own right; that the main focus of the meeting was on Ukraine and Georgia and their "territorial integrity" is eerily reminiscent of statements and land claims last made in Europe in 1938-1939.
Stoltenberg;s comments about NATO not tolerating any nation establishing and maintaining a sphere of influence approaches the surreal given the Pentagon turning all of Europe except Belarus and Russia into satrapies under the NATO aegis. In denouncing the very prospect of Russia having any influence in nations that border it and that not long ago were part of the same country, Stoltenberg became demonstrably and uncharacteristically condemnatory and bellicose, pounding the podium repeatedly. In general, the NATO secretary general's statements – diktat, ultimata and threats – over the past few weeks, reaching a crescendo at the Riga meeting, may well be the most inflammatory ones ever made by a NATO leader.
During the session with journalists a comment is made by a reporter that unless Bosnia is press-ganged into NATO "we will have Russian forces there." Along with similar statements regarding Moldova, the war front is constantly expanding from the Baltic-to-Black Sea front further inland to the Balkans and elsewhere.
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