Nato invited Russia today to attend talks with leaders of alliance countries during a summit in Lisbon in November, hoping to boost cooperation on security issues, including Afghanistan and Iran.
Nato diplomats said they were waiting for a response from Moscow to the invitation, which would involve talks on the sidelines of a November 19th-20th Nato summit in the Portuguese capital.
Nato is keen to expand cooperation with Russia on a range of security issues, including Afghanistan and a missile defence system designed to protect against a perceived threat from Iran, which the West suspects is trying to develop nuclear arms.
Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news briefing in Brussels that Nato foreign ministers would meet their Russian counterpart in New York on September 22nd, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
He said he hoped that meeting would "put some new energy" into Nato-Russia cooperation on Afghanistan and "when it comes to fighting terrorism and piracy and proliferation".
Mr Rasmussen said it was important that the Nato summit in Lisbon restate the alliance's offer for Russia to cooperate in missile defence. "We need an effective missile defence and I hope that that can be agreed," he said.
While Nato is keen to enhance security cooperation with Russia, progress has been only gradual since they patched up relations damaged by Russia's 2008 intervention in Georgia.
Nato has rebuffed president Dmitry Medvedev's proposal for a new European security treaty, seeing it as a way to divide the alliance, while Russia has some reservations about a new Nato "strategic concept" due to be approved at Lisbon.
The latter will lay out the alliance's vision of its role in the coming years and Moscow is concerned particularly that Nato will reserve the right to decide to use of force in areas outside its traditional North Atlantic sphere.
Reuters