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Foreign Min. Approves NATO Position
The proposal by NATO foreign ministers to renew dialog with Russian through the Russia-NATO Council is a sign that the organization is returning to a realistic position, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared in an official statement. “The majority of countries in the alliance did not give in to the attempt to reanimate the past threat from the East in the spirit of the Cold War. They realize that the absence of dialog with Russia on key security problems is counterproductive,” the ministry’s statement reads.
“Of course, in our further line of relations with NATO, we cannot fail to take into account the lessons of August, when the alliance took no steps to prevent Tbilisi’s adventures and took a unilateral position to side with Tbilisi, acting on the logic of ‘us and them.’ And when, in spite of the clauses of the Rome Declaration on emergency consultation in the Russia-NATO Council, a number of countries of the alliance blocked dialog in that format,” the statement continues.
“We are convinced that effective cooperation within the Russia-NATO Council is possible only on an honest and equal basis, taking into account mutual interests and concerns,” the statement instructs its reader. Russia was not the initiator of the pullback from political dialog in the Russia-NATO Council. In addition, members of the council work in a national quality and so no party can impose their ‘rules of the game.’ Further development of the dialog will depend on the efforts of all members of the Russia-NATO Council to seek jointly points of common interest, the Russian Foreign Ministry notes.
Many Russian experts see the recent NATO meeting in Brussels as a positive development for Moscow. Although NATO supported the U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe and imposed a number of conditions on the renewal of cooperation with Russia, it is a step forward in comparison to the situation for the last three months.
www.kommersant.com
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