BRUSSELS, 2 December. /Corr. Denis Dubrovin/. The Russian Federation has not yet received an official request by NATO to hold a meeting of the Council NATO – Russia (NRC).
This was stated by the permanent representative of Russia to NATO Alexander Grushko, commenting on the statement of Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about the readiness of the organization to hold a meeting of the Council.
“We appeal to the convening of the Council Russia – NATO has not been officially reported. Will do – consider. The decision to convene the Council adopted by consensus”, – said the permanent representative.
Russia has accumulated a lot of questions to the Alliance
Earlier, the Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow is ready to carrying out of the Council Russia – NATO because Russia have a lot of questions to the Alliance. “Russia has never refused to work in this format and in other formats,” the Minister said.
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He recalled that after the aggression of Saakashvili in South Ossetia in 2008 on the initiative of the USA the Board was frozen. “Then after a few months NATO members themselves said it was a mistake and that the NRC should be collected “in any weather”, as they put it, – said Lavrov. But now after the events in Ukraine, was organized the anti-constitutional armed coup, to power came nationalists, our NATO colleagues once again took offense and said the freezing mechanisms between Russia and NATO, including stopped working and the NRC”.
“If (NATO Secretary General), Mr. Stoltenberg was allowed to show such initiative, we will gather, look, listen what NATO colleagues want to tell us, – said the head of the Russian foreign Ministry. – We have accumulated a lot of questions for NATO, including in terms of how violated the agreements that existed in the framework of the Council Russia-NATO, so there is something to talk about”.
“The most important thing is not to allow a departure from core principles that underlie our relations with NATO of the principle of equal and indivisible security, when nobody in the Euro-Atlantic region to enhance their security at the expense of depriving security of others,” stressed Lavrov.
The Statement By Stoltenberg
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As of 2 December, the Secretary General of the Alliance, “decided to learn how to use the Council Russia-NATO for the resumption of cooperation with Russia”.
“We will investigate this issue and determine the time and date of the new meeting,” he said.
“I want to emphasize that, while NATO froze practical cooperation with Russia” after the reunification of the Crimea with Russia in 2014, “we agreed to maintain political contacts with Russia open,” said the Secretary General.
“Council Russia-the NATO remains in effect and in practice since 2014 there have been several meetings”, – said Stoltenberg.
