NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has paid his first official visit to Russia.
After taking office in August, Mr. Rasmussen is extensively travelling far and wide. In fact, it’s his duty. At present, NATO embraces almost 30 countries and several others are making bids to join the alliance. Although Russia is not a member of the alliance and has no intention to join it, the NATO Secretary General’s visit stirred up profound interest across the world. A reason for this is that it is impossible to solve any key issue under the extremely complicated situation in the world without taking into account interests of Russia or without its involvement. This is an indisputable fact and many, including NATO agree with it.
Over a year ago, NATO broke off all its relations with Moscow after the conflict in the Caucasus. But, later, pressed for the resumption of a dialogue. Russia, on its part, is well-aware that security in the world largely depends on its cooperation with NATO. This is the reason why visit to Moscow of Mr. Rasmussen was possible. The agenda of the visit was quite busy. Among the topics on it were European security, the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, fighting international terrorism and drug trafficking.
Among the proposals put forward by Mr. Rasmussen are the expansion of existing transit through Russia of NATO cargo for the coalition forces and the supply of Russian helicopters to the Afghan army. But there is a need to discuss these initiatives in detail.
The visit to Moscow of the NATO Secretary General confirmed the existing differences between the two sides, which concern the attitude towards Georgia. Mr. Rasmussen said NATO would continue to support Tbilisi and would not recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He made it clear that the admission of Ukraine and Georgia had remained an urgent issue but added that the two had to meet the necessary criterion. The discussions showed that the two sides had no intention to make compromises on the issue.
Summing up the outcome of the discussions Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said that much depends on the level of cooperation between Russia and NATO. Hopefully, the relations between Russia and the alliance will become stronger and more fruitful as a result of the visit, the Russian President said.
In short, the two sides have set their tasks but it will take a long time to fulfill them. The first step has been taken, and this is confirmed by the visit to Moscow of NATO Secretary General. The future will depend on whether the two sides could establish parity-based cooperation by taking into account mutual interests as done by the reliable partners.
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