MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. A negotiated settlement of the Ukrainian conflict is possible only if NATO abandons its further expansion eastward, American economist, professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs said in an interview with TASS.
"If the conflict in Ukraine ends at the negotiating table, the answer is yes (Western countries will abandon the idea of expanding NATO eastward - TASS), because non-enlargement of NATO would be the precondition for a peaceful settlement. If the war ends on the battlefield, it's almost surely going to end with Ukraine's defeat. That would put an end to NATO enlargement to Ukraine for sure," Sachs clarified.
Meanwhile, the economist admitted that "the rhetoric of NATO enlargement might or might not be stopped after such an event."
"We should recall that in 1990, the Western leaders, especially the US and Germany, said NATO wouldn't enlarge. And then they cheated after that. So it was already understood by the West a long time ago that NATO enlargement was a bad idea, understood by America's diplomats that this was a provocation. It could end very, very badly," Sachs went on to say.
He recalled the remarks by George Kennan, one of the most prominent US diplomats who dealt with US-Soviet Union issues back in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Thus, according to Sachs, in 1997, when NATO expansion emerged as official line, Kennan said: "this is the worst decision we've made since the end of the Cold War. It will lead to a new round of crisis." Thus, Sachs noted, the effects of such policy "were very predictable, and yet the Western governments were stupid enough to go ahead and try this NATO enlargement."
"So when you ask me, will NATO enlargement end when the war ends, certainly it should. It could. But we can't guarantee anything about changes in US or European foreign policy," the American economist concluded.