Condoleezza Rice: Romania – an example for peaceful conflict solving

US state secretary Condoleezza Rice pointed at Romania as an example of country that managed to solve its ethnic conflicts in a peaceful manner, thus arguing that this example is stands in favor of accepting Georgia’s accession to NATO.

Who would have thought in 1990, at the fall of the Soviet empire, that countries like Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria or Turkey will manage to solve their conflicts in a peaceful manner?

Rice thus related the Membership Action Plan (MAP) to the capability of solving existing or frozen ethnic conflicts, such as the one in Georgia. The US official MAP believes that MAP is a solution for conflicts that can not be solved otherwise.

At the NATO summit in Bucharest, in April 2008, the allies decided to postpone the MAP agreement with Georgia, countries like Germany claiming that the Caucasus republic must first solve its frozen conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Rice also blamed the Russian actions in Georgia, saying that the bombing of cities, airports and roads can not be justified by the protection of Russian peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia.

Rice added that the current situation is no longer similar to the one in 1968, when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia.