File photo: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg [Image: Russian Foreign Ministry]Russian media reports on Friday said a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council may take place within weeks after a prolonged spell of hostility. NATO-Russia ties were in shambles owing to differences over the Ukraine crisis.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexey Meshkov said on Friday that the West is not ready to “burn all bridges of cooperation” with Russia.
“We are at the final stage of preparation of the NATO-Russia Council meeting at the level of ambassadors that will be held after a rather long pause. The agenda has been already almost coordinated that is weighted and takes our interests into account,” Meshkov told the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.
“I do not rule out that it may take place in the coming weeks,” Meshkov was quoted as saying by Russian agency Tass.
The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) was established in Rome in May 2002.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, NATO’s maneuvers in eastern Europe have been heavily criticised by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has repeatedly protested the expansion of the so-called US anti-missile system by NATO along Russia’s borders in East Europe, calling it a direct threat to Moscow.
“In 2009, current President of the United States Barack Obama said that if Iran’s nuclear threat no longer existed there would be no incentive for establishing the ABM system; this incentive would disappear. However, the agreement with Iran has been signed. And now the lifting of sanctions is being considered… but the ABM system is being further developed,” Putin told German daily Bild in January this year.
Russia and NATO were bitter Cold War foes for more than 40 years.
The two sides attempted to build closer ties through a partnership program in the thaw that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
NATO’s gradual eastward expansion, taking in former Soviet republics and other countries that were once Moscow’s allies in the communist Warsaw Pact, angered Moscow.
At the Munich security conference in February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he discussed the possibility of the NATO-Russia Council work resumption with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
TBP and Agencies
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