Eduard Shevardnadze Quotes

We have every reason to put our trust in NATO and in transatlantic cooperation.

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.

The only thing wrong with NATO is that we don't belong to it.

We'll uphold our treaty obligations, including the mutual defense agreement that is NATO.

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

I'm hugely delighted with the presence of U.S. Armed Forces in the Polish territory.

The Hungarian people voted for NATO membership. We are active in the joint actions of NATO.

Our alliance with our NATO partners has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for nearly 70 years, in good times and in bad and through presidents of both parties because the United States has a fundamental interest in Europe's stability and security.

I think NATO is a Cold War product. I think NATO historically should have shut up shop in 1990 along with the Warsaw Pact; unfortunately, it didn't.

I think within Japan there is talk about how there is the need to reassess the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

We will continue to be a big contributor to NATO and our interests will be more secure.

Turkey's a NATO member. If Turkey gets attacked, we have to help defend Turkey.

For the United States to be a global leader, we have to have a very tight relationship with Europe. And we've held that relationship since 1949 when we established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. NATO is the bond. It's a security bond.

NATO was constructed on the - with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?

NATO was built to counteract the Soviet Union in its day and time. At this point there is no threat coming from the Soviet Union, because there is no Soviet Union anymore. And where there was the Soviet Union once, there is now a number of countries, among them the new and democratic Russia.

Just as we protect California, so shall we protect Japan.

I don’t want Italy to withdraw from the Atlantic Pact [NATO] … not only because our withdrawal would upset the international equilibrium. I feel safer …

Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai Five?

Can the wider West establish a global 'cyber NATO?' It would be difficult, but so, too, was the founding of NATO itself, which was called into being only after successive communist coups in Eastern Europe.

We created NATO. It was a United States invention for the collective security of Europe. It has been a Russian desire since 1947 to break up NATO.

I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.

The United States is contributing massively to the defence of Europe and we should be very grateful.

Russia and China are very natural partners. We are neighbors with an immense common border.

In the end, there will always be a fundamental difference of perspective between New Zealand and Australia on defense, whoever is in government.

So seven new countries, three of them formerly part of the Soviet Union, and the others part of the Warsaw Pact, will become full members of NATO next year.