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NATO Secretary General: "NATO open to dialogue with Russia"

25 November 2016 04:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. NATO is open to communication with Russia and will not prevent the alliance’s members from cooperating with Moscow, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday, APA reports quoting Sputnik.

"Actually, NATO decided at our summit in Warsaw in July this year that we will keep chance open for political dialogue with Russia … Russia is our biggest neighbor and we have to talk to them, we cannot isolate them, we have to sit down and address different issues both as NATO, as allies, but also and as individual allies," Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg stressed that "for NATO it is not a problem" if its allies discuss different issues with Russia.

Since 2014, NATO has been building up its military presence in Europe, especially in Eastern European countries neighboring Russia, using Moscow’s alleged interference in the Ukrainian conflict as a pretext. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claims and warned NATO that the military buildup on Russia’s borders is provocative and threatens the existing strategic balance of power.

During the last NATO summit in July, NATO resolved to strengthen its military presence in Eastern Europe on a rotational basis with four battalions in Poland and in the Baltic nations. During the 2014 summit, NATO established a 5,000-strong Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in response to the alleged Russian threat.