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#35 - JRL 2008-123 - JRL Home
All Sensitive Technology Facilities Will Be Moved To Russia, If Ukraine Joins NATO- Putin

MOSCOW. June 28 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that if Ukraine joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Russia will have to end its cooperation with Ukraine on production of sensitive technologies.

"As for sensitive technologies, and first of all rocket technologies, such production facilities will be located in Russia," Putin told journalists after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Moscow on Saturday.

"As for sensitive technologies - and we will certainly think of it beforehand - such production facilities, no matter how much it will cost, will be moved to Russia," he said.

"Many Ukrainian (defense) companies are not capable at all to work under NATO standards," he said.

"Some will probably adjust, but this will require additional serious investment," Putin added.

"We make our own weapons of a certain type under NATO standards and we are being quite successful with them on international markets," he said.

"In this respect we will probably be able to continue some cooperation (with Ukrainian companies)," Putin said.

Russia "believes any NATO enlargement is counterproductive from the point of view of international security," he said.

"This enlargement will not eliminate new threats but will only create new dividing lines," Putin said.

"The choice is to be made by those nations which decide for themselves whether to join any particular alliance, the membership in which is certain to restrict their sovereignty," the Russian prime minister said.

"But this is the internal matter of those nations," Putin said.