RUSSIA, BELARUS "DRAW RED LINE" AGAINST NATO ENLARGEMENT.

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Security Council Secretary Andrei Kokoshin held talks in Moscow on April 3 with Belarusan Foreign Minister Ivan Antanavich. They two ministers told a news conference that they had discussed, "in the common interest," measures to "draw a red line against NATO’s eastward enlargement, meaning that the new states which emerged on the territory of the former Soviet Union are not to join NATO." Antanavich and Kokoshin discussed unspecified measures to "deepen cooperation between Russia and Belarus in national defense and security." (Itar-Tass and other Russian agencies, April 3) The "red line" evidently concerns primarily the Baltic states, direct neighbors of Russia and Belarus. The remark is to be seen in conjunction with Moscow’s current anti-Baltic political offensive.

Mining Disaster in Ukraine.