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Russian Security Council chief upbeat on results of outgoing year
ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 27 December: "Reaching a qualitatively new level in Russia-NATO relations has become an important result of the outgoing year," Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushaylo believes. He summed up the results of the work done by the Security Council in 2001 in today's exclusive interview with an ITAR-TASS correspondent.

"The levels of cooperation between Russia and the alliance should be clearly defined," Vladimir Rushaylo believes. "Russia is ready for cooperation in the field of safeguarding strategic security, however defence policy issues are NATO's internal affair," he said. "NATO's firm intention to continue expanding eastwards cannot but cause Russia's anxiety," Vladimir Rushaylo said.

"We will not be queuing for NATO membership, and there is hardly any need to consider in earnest any prospects for Russia joining the alliance. However, Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its readiness to maintain most profound forms of cooperation with the alliance, and ever more frequent contacts between defence agencies prove this," he said. During his recent visit to Moscow, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson spoke about the need to work out new effective procedures for Russia's cooperation with the North-Atlantic bloc. "Russia is ready for this," the Russian Security Council secretary said.

According to Rushaylo, "changes in Russia-NATO relations also leave their imprint on bilateral contacts with the alliance's member states". "Similarity of the stands taken by Russia and the USA on the main issues of safeguarding strategic security gives grounds to hope that the withdrawal of the USA from the ABM treaty will not affect mutual relations of trust, which have been established between the two countries, and the balance of forces in the world as a whole," the Russian Security Council secretary believes. However, "all nuclear states will have to seek new points of contact in a bid to safeguard strategic stability in the modern world, which has long been guaranteed by the ABM treaty".

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