The Hindu : Russia to upgrade ties with NATO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

International

International

Russia to upgrade ties with NATO

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW DEC. 9. Moscow is upgrading its ties with NATO, but says it is premature to plan joint anti-terrorist operations with the alliance. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow planned to raise the status of its office in the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

At the same time Mr. Putin told the visiting NATO Secretary-General, George Robertson, that the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union should serve, "not to aggravate the situation, but increase trust'' between Russia and the Atlantic bloc. Until NATO clears Russian concerns Moscow says no to any joint action on the ground with NATO.

``It would be premature to talk about any practical, let alone combat (joint) operations against terrorism at this stage,'' the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said today at a Russia-NATO conference on the role of the military in combating terrorism.

The NATO chief is in Moscow for the conference, but his prime reason for visiting Russia is to see to it that the NATO-Russia cooperation under a joint council set up in May does not suffer as a result of the admission into the alliance of seven new members, including three former Soviet Baltic republics.

Moscow criticised the expansion as "unwarranted,'' but stopped short of regarding it as a threat.

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