PRESS RELEASE
Former NATO General Kujat Warns of Catastrophe
WIESBADEN, July 5, 2016 (EIRNS)—Gen. Harald Kujat (ret.) told the Cheminitz Freie Presse that Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was absolutely right in criticizing "NATO saber rattling," adding for his own that "He was referring to the latest NATO maneuvers in Poland, where also Georgians and Ukrainians were invited. With that, the impression was made that both countries were practically members. It was a provocation of Russia, as well as those allies who don’t see Georgia and Ukraine in the Alliance." Lyndon LaRouche commented that General Kujat’s analysis was exactly right, and that "the two countries represented NATO’s willing use of a fascist provocation on Russia’s borders."
In his interview, General Kujat again regretted that NATO has raised the impression that it wants to encircle Russia and urged that NATO return to the promise of the NATO-Russia partnership of the 1990s:
"For the Russians it is a matter of principle. According to Moscow’s view there was an agreement in the 1990s with NATO that it would not encircle Russia. ... In times of great political tension such measures will be seen as a provocation. ... And in not doing so, the risk increases week by week that at some point it will come to catastrophic misunderstanding."
General Kujat’s last career posting was as chairman of the NATO Military Committee (2002-05) and before that as chief of the Bundeswehr (German Military) General Staff (2000-02).
General Kujat will chair the Advisory Council of Vladimir Yakunin’s new Berlin-based think tank, Dialogue of Civilizations (DOC) Research Institute as of its July 1 founding in Berlin. The DOC Research Institute will officially become the new name for the World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations," according to the WPFDC website.
On June 30, General Kujat joined the deputy head of the German Free Democratic Party, Wolfgang Kubicki, in a public event at the Bundeswehr Marseille Barracks, near Hamburg, titled, "German Interests, Ethics, and the Societal Acceptance of Force." Although Kujat and Kubicki answered "No" to the moderator’s question on whether a new war would start, Kujat added,
"Isn’t it always the case that states don’t want war, but then, emerging out of the situation, they do happen?"
and cited the cases of both world wars.
