Lavrov: NATO is 'dragging Montenegro' into the alliance
At an OSCE ministerial meeting in Hamburg, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that NATO is “desperately dragging Montenegro” into the alliance, Evropeyskaya Pravda reported.
According to Lavrov, the continued enlargement of NATO in the Balkans changes the geopolitical situation on the European continent.
"NATO continues to say that they will continue to expand. Now they are desperately dragging Montenegro into their ranks and we see it. No one asks the people of Montenegro, though I believe that in this case they should be asked.
I got the impression that they want to drag Montenegro into NATO before the end of Obama presidency,” Larov stated.
In the summer of 2016, NATO approved Montenegro’s decision to join the alliance, though the treaty outlining the procedure has yet to be ratified. In Montenegro’s parliamentary elections in October, the pro-European and NATO party won the majority of votes.