Russia wants to hear NATO’s explanations on Warsaw
summit decisions — Lavrov
July 13, 14:54 UTC+3
According to the diplomat, it was NATO that requested a meeting of the
NATO-Russia Council
Sergey Lavrov
© Alexander Scherbak/TASS
ASTANA, July 13. /TASS/. The conversation at
Wednesday’s NATO-Russia Council (NRC) meeting should be responsible, and not
aimed at scoring propagandist points, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
said on Wednesday.
"We want to understand the explanation of
NATO’s decisions taken at the Warsaw summit," he said. "What we heard
in the public comments, of course, does not make us happy. A desire to preserve
the artificially created enemy image [of Russia - TASS] to demand the
unity of its ranks and consolidate its position on this basis prevails in
NATO."
"As for long-term nature of relations with
NATO, then it was not our initiative to break military cooperation in the fight
against terrorism," the minister said. "We also did not initiate the
freezing of all interaction in supporting the security forces of Afghanistan to
help them more effectively fight against the Islamic State [terrorist
organization outlawed in Russia - TASS] and other radicals."
According to the diplomat, NATO representatives said
that they agreed to hold the NRC meeting, "displaying goodwill."
"We didn’t ask anybody. If they froze the mechanism, so they should take
the steps," the Russian foreign minister said. "The Alliance
requested that we hold a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, and we
agreed, because we never evade dialogue," Lavrov said.
He expressed the hope that the NRC meeting
participants would have not a PR stunt, but "a really responsible
conversation, not aimed at scoring propagandist points." "The
conversation should correspond to the seriousness of the situation, developing
as a result of the NATO policy in the sphere of military-political security on
the European continent," Lavrov said.
The minister has stressed that NATO’s policy led to
alienation on the European continent and Russia hoped that this course would
change.
Rejection of regular dialogue
The minister also said that because of the position
taken by the Russophobic minority, the proposal to hold regular meetings of the
NATO-Russia Council was blocked. "We know that reputable, leading NATO
countries, primarily European, have advocated within the Alliance framework for
regular contacts within NRC, as it was in the past," the foreign minister
said. "But that same minority, which received some enormous pleasure from
the Russophobic positions, has categorically blocked the proposal. They said:
let’s gather once, and then we'll see."
According to Lavrov, this gives an impression that
"they are playing some sort of their own game and do not understand what's
going on." "And what’s happening is a real alienation within the
European continent," Lavrov said. "I really hope that this policy is
clear to the respectable politicians in Europe and the United States, and that
they will be able to change that course and will rely on the agreements that
have been fixed within the OSCE framework and within the framework of the
Founding Act, which was signed between Russia and NATO."
"We are ready for this, let's see how
responsibly and seriously they approach the situation in Europe", said the
Russian foreign minister.
The NATO-Russia Council meeting at the ambassadorial
level has started in Brussels on Wednesday.
NATO froze all practical cooperation with the
Russian Federation in April 2014 - after Crimea’s reunification with Russia.
The operation of the NATO-Russia Council was preserved to maintain political
dialogue channels open. The current meeting of the Council will become the
third after the cooperation freeze. The Council’s first meeting was held June 2,
2014, its second on April 20, 2016.
Contacts between Russia and NATO continued in other
formats too. On June 17, 2014, NATO’s Headquarters in Brussels held a
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) meeting at the level of permanent
representatives; on May 19, 2015, the Belgian capital hosted a meeting between
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the NATO secretary-general. Later
Lavrov and Stoltenberg met twice - on September 29, 2015 in New York and on
February 12, 2016 in Munich.
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