Rogozin "corrected" the head of the General Staff: Russia and NATO will not resume cooperation this year

The Permanent Representative of Russia at NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday that the activities of the Russian Federation of the Russian Federation could be unlocked only after negotiations at a high political level, and this will hardly happen this year. The day before, we recall, General Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, was admitted to such an opportunity, after a meeting in Helsinki with the chairman of the Committee of the Chiefs of the US Armed Forces Admiral Michael Mullen.

According to Rogozin, to restore cooperation with the Alliance, a "serious meeting at a high political level" will be required. “This should be the contact of not a diplomatic, but a political level,” the Permanent Proper emphasized in an interview with Interfax . He noted that "the Russian side will insist on a serious thorough conversation in a narrow circle in order to analyze the reasons for such an annoying failure allowed by the NATO in the work of the Council."

- sharp corners in the relations of Russia and NATO

At the same time, Rogozin actually spoke out for the resumption of the activities of the Russia-NATO Council in a new capacity, the agency notes. “Without denying the fact that the activities of the Council should resume and, moreover, supporting the idea of ​​resuming cooperation, interrupted not through our fault, it was blocked primarily by the American side; we nevertheless do not believe that we can enter the same river twice,” Rogozin said.

He recalled that the council was created, including in order to overcome all kinds of critical situations together. “But when this critical situation has come, it surged, the Russian Council of Russia turned out to be a rusty mechanism that was not able to smooth out the contradictions that have arisen,” said the Permanent Representative.

Recall that after the armed conflict in South Ossetia, the NATO Council at the level of defense ministers accepted a critical statement to Russia on the situation in South Ossetia, after which the relations between the alliance and the Russian Federation were frozen .

According to Rogozin, if you return to cooperation, "then it should be such that henceforth not allow any attempts to one of the 27 parties (members of the Council) to put its paw on a full interaction between Russia and the West on such important issues as strategic cooperation and safety." In addition, Rogozin expressed confidence that the new relations between Russia and NATO should fit into the concept of European security proposed by the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev.