Stoltenberg blamed Russia for ending dialogue with NATO
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance is ready for contacts with Russia and dialogue, if Moscow itself is ready for this.
“We are ready to meet with the Russian Federation. he is at a press conference ahead of the North Atlantic Council’s defense-level meeting on October 21 and 22 in Brussels.
At the same time, Stoltenberg admitted that now relations between the Russian side and the North Atlantic Alliance are the worst since the Cold War. “And this situation has developed because of Russia’s behavior,” he said.
According to the Secretary General, “Russia seized the territory of its neighbors, intervened in democratic processes.” Stoltenberg is confident that “at some stage Russia will have to understand that the world will become more secure if we establish an accessible dialogue.”
Meanwhile, Moscow said that Russia and NATO have no relationship. This opinion was previously expressed by the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the closure of the Russian mission to NATO in Brussels.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also agrees with him. Earlier, you will agree that Moscow was ready for a dialogue with NATO, but the alliance has been ignoring Russia, and for more than one year. He also noted that “in principle, there have been no even information exchanges with the headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance for a long time.”
On October 18, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the suspension of the mission to NATO. In addition, the department said that the activities of the information bureau of the alliance and its military mission in Moscow are being terminated. Further contacts with NATO will go through the Russian council in Belgium.
This decision was a response to the withdrawal of accreditation from eight employees of the Russian permanent mission to NATO. This mission was reduced to 10 people. According to the NATO secretary general, the accreditation is supposedly the intelligence officers who worked undercover.
Lavrov notes that there is no need to look for logic in the actions of the khyansa. “I have already said how it all began and how the NATO members themselves simply“ buried ”the main rule that underlies the creation of the Russia-NATO Council, namely, the need to urgently consult in crisis situations, and this, in general, continues,” leads words of the Minister of RIA Novosti. According to him, the North Atlantic Alliance must take the first step to restore the dialogue.
In turn, the deputy head of the Russian UN group in the First Committee of the General Assembly Andrei Belousov noted,
that in order to establish a dialogue, NATO must abandon the “strategy of containing Moscow.” The diplomat also “mutually reduce military activity along the border of Russia and NATO countries.”
According to the diplomat Konstantin Gavrilov, NATO is samato in the suspension of missions, since the former refused to have an equal dialogue with Russia. He noted that the proclamation of Russia as a focus on its “containment” is a provocative policy and practice of the Russian borders.