NATO Expansion: Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas Debunks the Lie that “Nothing Was Promised” to Russia

PARIS, Feb. 15, 2022 (EIRNS)—In a powerful intervention into the current crisis, Roland Dumas, French President François Mitterrand’s Foreign Affairs Minister (1984-’86, ’88-’93) and therefore a direct eye- and ear-witness, in a 27-minute interview with the French website Les Crises, completely debunks the Anglo-American claims that “nothing” was promised to Russia.

The interview was posted on Feb. 12 on YouTube in four separate versions, each of them subtitled in one of the four languages of the Normandy Format: Russian, English, German, and French.

The French-language channel of RT reports: “The former head of French diplomacy explains that he took part in the discussions to which Russia refers today when it evokes Western promises of non-expansion of NATO, made to the USSR at the end of the Cold War.”

Moscow’s claim that the West would not expand NATO to its borders "are strongly questioned within the Western political-media landscape, where they are sometimes presented as a ‘myth’ or as a ‘historical untruth’. Western promises, but still? In an interview published on February 13 on the website Les Crises, the former head of French diplomacy Roland Dumas returned to the subject, recalling that he himself participated in the discussions to which Russia refers.

“In 1990, Roland Dumas, then-French Minister of Foreign Affairs, took part in the negotiations leading up to the Moscow Treaty, which focused primarily on the reunification of Germany, and during which general considerations aimed at putting a definitive end to the Cold War were also discussed. This discussion took place first of all because the Russians asked for it [and] because we supported it. According to him, the USSR delegation had submitted two major requests to its Western allies at the time:

“—one concerned the maintenance of monuments to the glory of the Soviet army after the departure of its troops;

“—the other concerned a Western commitment that ‘there would be no movement of NATO troops in the regions of the Soviet pact’ that [were] to be disarmed.

“‘This discussion took place, first of all because the Russians asked for it [and] because we supported it: me first, the Americans too, and the Germans of course,’ the former senior diplomat explained then. ‘I remember the scene very well, [James] Baker [then US Secretary of State] intervened after me and said: “Even if Mr. Dumas had not asked for it, I would have asked for it,”’ he recounts, referring to the Western commitment to a non-expansion of NATO to the east.”

RT confirms this with statements by Gorbachov, who said, “Another issue we raised was discussed: ensuring that NATO’s military structures did not advance and that additional Alliance armed forces were not deployed on the territory of the former GDR after German reunification.”

At the end of 2021, in the midst of a diplomatic crisis over the thorny Ukrainian issue, Gorbachev said about the West: “It has gone to their heads, arrogance, self-satisfaction, they have proclaimed themselves winners of the Cold War while we had together saved the world from confrontation…. How can we expect fair relations with the United States, with the West, in this situation?” According to him, the Western side wanted to “build a new empire” and “that’s where the idea of NATO enlargement was born.”