NATO is not considering Russia as the enemy and is not a threat to Russia. This was stated by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of NATO, on Thursday, 9 December, commenting the published by WikiLeaks information on the existing plan of defending the Baltic States and Poland against Russia.

“Let me underline that according to the policy of NATO, we are not commenting on the leakage of secret information”. – he said, refusing thus to confirm or deny even the fact of existence of such a plan.

“I would like to tell strongly that we are not considering Russia a threat, and that NATO is no threat for Russia, - stressed he answering the questions of the ITAR-TASS correspondent. – On the contrary, we want to develop real strategic partnership between Russia and the NATO. This is actually what we have written in our new strategic conception. And this is also what we have stated in our mutual declaration of the summit Russia-NATO in Lisbon.

Secretary General noted that on 8 December “a very positive and constructive meeting of the Council Russia-NATO took place, where we have passed a decision to start working on common analysis of possibilities for developing practical cooperation on ABM. We have also agreed to start preparations for the resumption of cooperation on theatre missile defence. This is a clear demonstration that we are willing to move further in our relations, and we are also willing to keep the spirit of Lisbon”, - concluded the NATO Secretary General.

As reported earlier by the permanent representative of Russia to NATO Dmitrij Ragozin, the first meeting of military experts from Russia and NATO on ABM following the Lisbon summit is planned for 16 December.

Material has been prepared by the Centre of Geopolitical Studies with reference to the article from « Вести.Ру» of 09 12  2010

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