Nato to hold talks with Russia before summit
Nato said yesterday it will hold formal talks with Russia before a landmark July summit in Warsaw endorses the alliance's biggest military build-up since the end of the Cold War, to counter a more assertive Russia.
In April, the Nato Russia Council (NRC) held its first meeting since June 2014 but the talks ended in "profound disagreements" over Ukraine and other issues, although alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said at the time it was a useful exchange.
Pressed by some of Nato's 28 member states to try again, Stoltenberg said yesterday that alliance foreign ministers had agreed to explore if another NRC was possible.
"We have agreed on the message of dialogue and defence... based on that, there was broad agreement yesterday that Nato should convene a new meeting of the NRC before our next summit in July," he told reporters alongside European Union foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini.
"We will now start to look at the modalities and practical arrangements," he added as Nato foreign ministers met for a second day in Brussels.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chided Stoltenberg for making the announcement so publicly without consulting Russia first, reports AFP.
"Why would he say such a thing?" Lavrov said according to an Interfax report. "The Russia-Nato Council works on the basis of consensus. If they wanted to discuss it, let them discuss it with us and not go straight for the microphone."
Meanwhile, Kremlin yesterday condemned Nato's membership invitation to Montenegro, saying the step risked fuelling geopolitical tensions in Europe, reports Reuters.
"In general, our stance is that Nato's further expansion is a negative process," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters.
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