Roundup: NATO, Russia Strive to Promote Relations to Higher Level

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Roundup: NATO, Russia Strive to Promote Relations to Higher Level

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NATO, Russia Strive to Promote Relations to Higher Level

The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russia signed a declaration on Tuesday on the official establishment and operation of the NATO-Russia Council, opening a new chapter in bilateral relations.

The new council, a mechanism so often quoted as "NATO at 20," will enable cooperation on such issues as anti-terrorism, crisis management, non-proliferation, arms control, military, and reaction to civil emergencies.

Russia will be given an "equal status" in identification of andcooperation in the above mentioned matters with NATO member nations.

Leaders attending the summit spoke highly of the new establishment. U.S. President George W. Bush said: "Two former foes are now joined as partners, overcoming 50 years of division and a decade of uncertainty."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the new council would promote cooperation to a high quality.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said at a joint press conference at the end of the meeting that the new partnership would make the world a safer place.

The main contents of the declaration were reached by NATO and Russian foreign ministers in windswept Reykjavik on May 14.

As far back as in the early 1990s, the relations between NATO and Russia began to thaw with the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union.

To allay Russia's fears over the eastward expansion of NATO, the military alliance and Russia signed the Founding Act on MutualRelations, Cooperation and Security in May 1997, which was followed by the establishment of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council. It provided a consultation mechanism for cooperation between the two sides.

However, the mechanism did not ultimately solve the problems which have blocked the smooth development of bilateral relations. With the outbreak of the Kosovo war, Russia disrupted all its tieswith the military alliance, plunging bilateral ties to rock bottomin a decade.

With Putin elected president, Russia tried to mend fences with NATO, but with little success. The September 11 attacks in Washington and New York represented a rare opportunity for improvement of bilateral relations.

After Putin adjusted Russia's foreign policies, relations with NATO and the United States improved markedly, laying a solid foundation for the birth of the new council.

In December 2001, Russia and NATO announced in Brussels that they decided to start talks on the establishment of a new council,and a series of talks and bargaining on varying levels were held afterwards.

Days before NATO's Reykjavik ministerial meeting, they reached consensus on the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council, which was viewed as beneficial to both sides.

Russia has long been seeking to absorb Western capital and technologies to inject new impetus into its sluggish economy, a precondition for enhancement of its status in the international arena.

NATO, however, hoped it would remove the biggest obstacle to its expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries in central and eastern Europe.

While granted "equal status" in the new council, Russia has yetto acquire the right of veto it has been seeking to the core issues of NATO, an area where NATO has never hesitated to refuse "foreigners."

Thus, NATO and Russia remain as two entities which can act independently as far as things of paramount importance are concerned.

Nevertheless, the establishment of the new council represents abig step in the direction of enhancement of cooperation between the two sides. It surely offers new possibilities for a closer NATO-Russia relationship.

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