ABOUT FACE: NATO Restarts a Dialogue with Russia

21st Century Wire says…
Last month 21WIRE reported how NATO openly refused to engage with Russia regarding important anti-terrorism dialogue.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that by not maintaining a dialogue with Moscow on counter-terrorism, NATO is putting the world at large in jeopardy.

All of the sudden this week, NATO has done a 180º about face. Why?
In addition, certain quarters of the mainstream media are now breaking ranks on the west’s ‘anti-Russia’ PR campaign.
Considering the way Russia has been ostacized over the last 28 months, you can expect Moscow is going in with eyes wide open, and not eyes wide shut…
NATO: It’s been reduced to a private security force for western corporate interests.
 
Peter Korzun
Strategic Culture

NATO and Russia held their highest level talks in nearly two years on April 20 in a bid to ease tensions and renew regular contacts.
It was the first meeting of the Russia-NATO Council (RNC), established in 2002, ever since the Alliance cut off all ties with Moscow over Ukraine in early 2014. With RNC activities suspended, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on several occasions in recent years.
Tensions have flared in the past week, involving the US military and Russian planes in the Baltic Sea. Russian warplanes flew over an US missile destroyer close to the Baltic Fleet home base in what the US called a «simulated attack». In another incident a US spy plane was intercepted by a fighter in the vicinity of Russia’s border. The US never explained the reason for coming so close to Russia’s coast.
Moscow blames NATO for increasing the risk of conflict by provocatively increasing the military presence in Eastern Europe.
According to Alexander Grushko, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, «Policy and military planning of NATO that base on deterrence of Russia are incompatible with any plans to create confidence-building measures». He believes that the dialogue on strengthening trust is impossible without reduction of NATO’s presence at Russia’s borders.
With the next NATO summit in Warsaw just three months away, an increasingly militarized line dividing Russia and the Alliance is in place, running along the eastern frontier of the Baltic States, Poland’s border along the Bug River boundary, and farther south along the frontier of the Black Sea NATO members. Russia regards the eastern European reinforcements as US-led aggression, an attempt to encircle it like it was in the days of Cold War…
Continue this story at Strategic Culture
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