NATO-Russia Council Lacks Efficiency

The NATO-Russia council was created in 2002 as a consultative mechanism. NATO suspended all practical civilian and military cooperation with Russia after the Ukraine crisis broke out in April 2014.

The first Russia-NATO Council meeting at the level of permanent envoys in two years was held on April 20, but failed to yield any significant results due to the sides’ disagreement on a number of geopolitical issues. One more meeting of the council at the level of ambassadors was held in the Belgian capital of Brussels on July 13.

"There is no doubt that it is better to have such a mechanism than to have no mechanism. But as it is today, of course it lacks efficiency… Because it was created basing on the principles of equality: not 1+28 but 29 equal participants with each party having a right to its own position that may be not in line with the NATO position," Kosachev told Russia’s Izvestiya newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

He added that the NATO-Russia Council could be an effective platform for discussions if Russia communicated with states not with the whole alliance.

"Now it is still a mechanism of contacts between Russia and NATO. That is an ordinary mechanism of consultations, not a council."

Source: Sputnik News