NATO tried to underestimate importance of NATO-Russia Council meeting - Rogozin


Interfax
December 1, 2009


BRUSSELS. Dec 1 (Interfax) - The opponents of development of
Russia-NATO relations have made an attempt to underestimate the
importance of the ministerial meeting within the framework of the NATO-
Russia Council, which is scheduled for December 4, Russian envoy at NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Interfax on Tuesday.

"We need to state a sad fact: there are still influential forces in
NATO, which demonstrate a lack of any political will to develop
relations with Russia," Rogozin said.

Rogozin said an unsanctioned meeting of the NATO-Russia Council
took place on Tuesday morning at the initiative of NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, where an attempt was made to reach agreements on a number of important documents. However, the attempt failed.

"The actions taken by some delegations in the NATO-Russia Council
have in effect cast doubt on the filling of the upcoming ministerial
meeting with real content," Rogozin said. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov is among the people expected to take part in the upcoming
meeting, Rogozin said.

Rogozin said the participants in the meeting held on Tuesday
morning tried to discuss three documents. "The first one was a draft
instruction to begin a survey of general threats, the second was a
program of the NATO-Russia Council for 2010, and the third one is
related to the improvement of the NATO-Russia Council and the
modernization of its work," Rogozin said.

Russia had serious question about the most recent version of the
texts," Rogozin said. "The thing is that, for example, some delegations
are trying to 'kill' our proposals on further work of the NATO-Russia
Council, mainly, the areas in which Russia tried to solidify cooperation
with NATO at the needed level," Rogozin said.

Rogozin said he has asked his colleagues in NATO to include in the
text missing basic elements relating to the activities of the
NATO-Russia Council. "Nevertheless, some delegations, primarily the
Canadian one and those who supported it, have blocked the adoption of
all the documents submitted to the ministerial level, that is, to the
December 4 meeting," he aid.

Rogozin said he still hopes the NATO general secretary will take
additional measures "to convince skeptics to keep the ministerial
meeting from being objectless."

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