President Putin has declared that Russia would reconsider its opposition to NATO enlargement if Moscow became more involved in the process. He was speaking in Brussels where the EU and Russia agreed to hold monthly meetings on foreign and defence policy.
"If NATO takes on a different shade and is becoming a political organisation, of course we would reconsider our position with regard to such expansion if we were to feel involved in such processes. They keep saying that NATO is becoming more political than military. We are looking at this and watching this process. If this is to be so, it would change things considerably," he said.
Mr Putin was in Brussels for two days of talks with EU and NATO leaders, during which he discussed political and economic issues as well as the joint fight against terrorism. In a speech to the Bundestag in Berlin last week, Mr Putin said there was no reason why Rusia could not consider joining NATO in the future.
Senior EU diplomats said yesterday that there was little prospect of Russia joining the alliance in the near future. But they pointed out that recent changes in NATO's role, which have seen the alliance focusing on peacekeeping under a United Nations aegis rather than strict, mutual defence, have made the organisation less threatening to Moscow.
The EU's Political and Security Committee, a group of ambassadors from the 15 member-states, will meet Russian foreign policy and defence officials once a month - or more often if events demand it. Mr Putin said he did not want to "abuse" the outrage that followed last month's attacks in the US to boost his government's policy in Chechnya. But he drew a direct parallel between the US attacks and explosions in Moscow that have been blamed on Chechen rebels. "The signatures are the same," he said.
Mr Putin said he was prepared to take on board EU criticisms of Russian policy in Chechnya and to investigate any specific charges of human rights abuses. "We should not allow fundamentalists and terrorists to use democratic institutions to attack those democratic institutions. We are prepared not only to listen but to react to what is being said to us," he said.
Some EU officials are concerned that Mr Putin may wish to use the international coalition against terrorism as an opportunity to win western backing for his policy in Chechnya. Although the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schr÷der, suggested last week that it might be time to take a new attitude to the conflict, few other western leaders want to change their policy.
The EU and Russia agreed to discuss the creation of a common economic space and to pursue talks on EU use of Russian energy. They agreed to work towards a common position on the future of Kaliningrad in time for the EU summit at Laeken in December.
