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#31 - JRL 2009-79 - JRL Home
Rogozin to raise issue of Georgia training at NATO-Russia Council meeting

BRUSSELS. April 28 (Interfax) - Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said the first official meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, which is scheduled to take place on Wednesday will address issues on which Russia and NATO have major differences, as well as ways to improve political dialogue between Russia and NATO.

"The official NATO-Russia Council meeting is very important," Rogozin told Interfax on Tuesday. He pointed out that it will be the first official meeting after the freezing of NATO-Russia relations in August 2008 due to the events in the Caucasus.

The meeting will have a fixed agenda and will address the situation of security in Europe and the Atlantic, said Rogozin.

Rogozin said the meeting will address the issues that "have been accumulated for the time when Russia and NATO had no official contacts."

"No doubt, I will not leave without drawing attention to the situation with NATO's plans to conduct training in Georgia [in May]," he said.

The allegations that the training will have "a low profile" and will be as transparent and open to Russia as possible cannot be accepted by Russia "for obvious reasons," said Rogozin. "We will not send our observers there and therefore we will regard this training as a clearly unfriendly move by NATO, which is incapable of restoring even a small degree of confidence in our relations," he said.

However, Rogozin said that does not mean that Russia will not rebuild its relations with NATO. Rogozin confirmed that Russia is not giving up its slogan, which says that "The NATO-Russia Council should work in any political weather."

This slogan was proposed in response to the U.S. demarche aimed at disrupting the NATO-Russia Council meetings in August 2008. "We shouldn't act like those whom we have sharply criticized before," he said.

Rogozin also said the meeting will address the state of NATO-Russia contacts in the political and military spheres.

"No doubt, we are interested in the interpretation of some passages dealing directly with our country and Russia-NATO cooperation; we are most likely to talk about arms control and missile defense," he said.

The meeting will also address the so-called restart of NATO-Russia relations, said Rogozin.