NATO military base in Ulyanovsk ‘out of question’

There will be no NATO military base in Ulyanovsk, the Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated on Wednesday. Yury Gorlach, deputy director of the ministry's Department on European Cooperation stressed there have never been any talks on the issue, and “they could never have been conducted in principle.” The sole purpose of the station created in Ulyanovsk is “to load NATO cargo from planes onto rail transport,” Interfax quoted Gorlach as saying. The ministry explains that there will be no base, military men or other NATO specialists in the city on the Volga that is Vladimir Lenin's birthplace. Nevertheless, the Communists and other groups in Ulyanovsk staged protests, including a hunger strike, against the cargo transit plans.