NATO calls meeting with Russia amidst rising tensions

(Vatican Radio) The Secretary General of NATO says the military alliance wants a meeting with Russia before NATO leaders meet in Warsaw this July amidst the worst east-west standoff since the end of the Cold War. Jens Stoltenberg made the announcement following a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The gathering was overshadowed by Russian anger over NATO's decision to invite Montenegro as its 29th member state and tensions between the United States and Russia over Syria.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report:

The NATO ministers gathered while the United States rejected a Russian proposal to carry out joint air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had urged both nations to target groups who do not observe a US-Russia brokered truce. “We should start joint actions between the Russian air force and the air force of the US-led coalition on May 25 and plan and carry out air strikes on targets and units belonging to al-Nusra and other illegal military groups, that do not observe the ceasefire,” he suggested.  

Yet, the U.S. State Department made clear they had different objections. While Moscow supports Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Washington is backing groups attempting to overthrow him in a conflict which has claimed 250,000 lives.

Beyond Syria, tensions remain between NATO and Russia over the ongoing expansion of the alliance and its plans to boost its presence in Europe. On Thursday the small Balkan nation of Montenegro was officially invited to join NATO, prompting the Kremlin to describe NATO's  further expansion as a “negative process”.

'NO COLD WAR'

At the same NATO meeting in Brussels the alliance's secretary general Stoltenberg also announced that troops would be deployed in eastern Europe amid rising tensions with Russia. “The signal of having a multinational presence sends a very clear signal about that an attack on one ally would be an attack on the whole alliance," he told reporters.

"But at the same we are sending a signal about that NATO does not seek confrontation. We don’t want a new Cold War, and we’re are still striving for more constructive and cooperative cooperation with Russia,” he added.

Britain says NATO’s build-up in eastern Europe could include up to 3,500 troops. NATO claims that Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has prompted the alliance to consider deterrent forces in other nearby nations such as the Baltics.

Though the U.S. and NATO ceased all formal military cooperation with Moscow, foreign ministers agreed that the alliance should meet Russia before a NATO summit in Warsaw in July. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has welcomed the announcement, but cautioned that all dialogue must in his words "include respect for Russia's interests".