Russia, NATO schedule security talks

Russia and NATO are set to hold talks on issues of high mutual interest, the Western military alliance has announced, amid increased hostilities between the two sides.

According to Press TV, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the capital of Belgium, Brussels, on Thursday said envoys from NATO will hold a formal meeting with the Russian envoy to the alliance on Monday.

The meeting was organized after Moscow agreed to discuss the conflict in eastern Ukraine and as the alliance seeks to avoid any escalation of an East-West stand-off.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), the forum bringing together NATO ambassadors and Russia’s top envoy to NATO. It would be the third time the NRC will convene this year.

“The NATO-Russia council is an important platform for dialog and I have invited the members of the NATO-Russia council to a meeting on Monday,” Stoltenberg said. “We will meet at ambassadorial level and we will meet at the NATO headquarters. We will discuss and address topics of relevance for European security, importantly Ukraine.”

“When tensions run high, as today, it is even more important to have direct dialog with Russia,” he said.

Russia has repeatedly voiced concerns about the US-led alliance’s military build-up near its borders. The Russian permanent representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, said he would raise at the meeting Moscow’s concerns about NATO’s plan to send multinational forces to the Baltics and Poland from next year.

ME