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Protest expressed to German ambassador over opening of NATO naval HQ in Rostock

This step by the German government "continues the course toward the creeping revision of the results of World War II and the country’s militarization," the ministry told the ambassador

MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. German Ambassador to Russia Alexander Lambsdorff was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry following the opening of a new NATO multinational naval headquarters for the Baltic Sea in the East German city of Rostock, the ministry said.

"The German ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry. A strong protest was expressed to him over the establishment of the Commander Task Force Baltic (CTF Baltic) on the basis of the German Navy Headquarters and at Berlin’s initiative," the ministry said.

This step by the German government "continues the course toward the creeping revision of the results of World War II and the country’s militarization," the ministry told the ambassador. "This step constitutes a flagrant violation of the letter and the spirit of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of September 12, 1990 (Two Plus Four Treaty), which binds it not to deploy foreign troops to the territory of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR)."

"We demanded immediate exhaustive explanations from Berlin," the ministry emphasized.

According to the ministry, the Russian side sees tragic parallels with Germany’s militarization in 1936 and the violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. "Not only politicians in European capitals bit also their sponsors in Washington seem to have caught historic amnesia and forgotten that Paris and London’s tacit approval of the Third Reich leaders’ actions, which was driven by blind hatred to the Soviet Union, lead to a catastrophe for the peoples of Europe and Germany," the ministry noted.

"Today, at the current historic stage, the former Western anti-Hitler coalition allies have not only blessed Berlin for the explicit violation of one of the basic documents of international law, but have become its accomplices," it said.

"Washington, Brussels, and Berlin must bear in mind that the expansion of NATO’s military infrastructure to the territory of the former GDR will have the most negative consequences and will not remain unanswered by the Russian side," it warned.