Moscow, Jul 25 (Prensa Latina) The Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov has reaffirmed Russia”s willingness to restore the mechanisms of cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on issues of global security, but in conditions of equity.
The Deputy Foreign Minister said that Moscow has reiterated more than once the willingness to renew the partnership with NATO under the principles of equality, and said he believed in a positive predisposition of the alliance.
The stability in Afghanistan (in relation to safety in Russia’s southern borders), the security of civil flights and the fight against international terrorism, one of the biggest global threats nowadays stand out among the issues of greatest urgency and interest to Russia.
According to the Russian deputy minister, the issue depends on how long NATO will continue ignoring the objective need for cooperation and connection of resources and potential of international actors in the face of the collective challenges and dangers, as quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.
The diplomat stated that, on the contrary, the Western bloc tries to exert political and military pressure on Russia.
Moscow awaits a response from NATO to the proposed joint measures to ensure the safety of Allied and Russian aviation in the Baltic region, where the Allied high command, playing into the hands of the United States, has deployed additional troops and armament near the Federation’s borders, in addition to constant spy flights.
Meshkov reiterated that his country is open and ready for a direct dialogue with Brussels on a wide spectrum of political and military issues in the Euro-Atlantic region.
One of the local initiatives during the session of the Russia-NATO Council, on July 13th, was related with a plan for confidence-building measures for the safety of flights in the Baltic, an issue that is constantly in the center of bilateral tensions, coupled with the deployment of strategic components of the US missile shield in Eastern Europe.
As part of the strategy of containment and encirclement against Russia, NATO reaffirmed at a recent summit the emplacement in 2017 of four additional battalions in Warsaw, Poland; and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three Baltic former Soviet republics.
