by Dmitry Zaks
MOSCOW, Sept 8 (AFP) - Russia warned Wednesday it could carry out pre-emptive strikes on "terrorist bases" wherever it finds them as it stepped up security after the country's worst hostage crisis.
Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky also said ominously that Russia would not revert to the use of its massive nuclear arsenal to fight terror in a comment that perplexed some observers.
"Military steps are an extreme measure in the fight against terrorism," Baluyevsky said after talks with US General James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe.
"Our position on preemptive strikes has been stated before, but I will repeat it. We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region -- but this does not mean that we will resort to the use of nuclear force," he said.
Interfax news agency had earlier quoted Baluyevsky as speaking of the elimination of terrorist bases "in any region of the world."
But the general's remarks, which were similiar to other comments made by Russian officials in past, were interpreted to mean the Caucasus, Central Asia and other areas near Russia.
Moscow's military policy is to permit pre-emptive strikes if it feels its security is under threat -- a similar policy to that of the United States -- and use nuclear weapons if the country's very existence is under threat.
Baluyevsky's comments came in response to a reporter's question about whether Russia would resort to such strikes to avert future attacks like the one on the school in southern Beslan, which killed 336 civilians and law enforcement agents along with 31 hostage takers.
But defense analyst Leonid Ivashov, reacting to the comments, said: "This is complete nonsense.
"We need to know where the terrorists are hiding before we can plan attacks, and we have not been able to determine that for 10 years," Ivashov, who used to head the defense ministry's foreign relation's department, told Moscow Echo Radio.
Embroiled in a five-year guerrilla war in rebel Chechnya, Russia has so far only been accused of dropping a few bombs on the restless Panskisi Gorge in neighboring Georgia, where it suspects some of the Chechen rebels are training and hiding.
Two Russian secret service agents were also handed life sentences this year for assassinating a Chechen rebel leader who had moved from Chechnya to Qatar.
Baluyevsky's comments came during the first visit to Russia by Jones, who stressed the two former Cold War era foes had entered a new friendly relationship since the September 11 attacks, and that this bond only grew stronger after the seizing of the school in the southern town of Beslan.
"We face common threats and common challenges," said Jones. "We are entering a period of heightened cooperation against these threats and this is very, very important."
He called the strikes on Beslan an "insidious attack."
Just like before the launch of the US-led attack on Afghanistan that Russia supported in October 2001, the two generals said the Beslan attack should redouble the two sides' efforts to fight terror.
"Today international terrorism has become an international force and only through joint action (with NATO) can we fight this scourge," Baluyevsky said.
He said the two sides agreed to exchange information on terror cells around the world and to coordinate a rapid response team to fight them.
Meanwhile, Russia and NATO tried hard in public to skirt an issue that soured relations before the Chechen-linked attacks on Russia -- NATO's military expansion into the former Soviet Baltic states.
Jones said NATO had no plans to build permanent bases in the region, but did not rule out the possibility more Western troops may be stationed there soon.