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NATO Wise Men Group to talk in Duma on relations with RF

12. February 2010. | 08:42

Source: Itar-Tass

The previous concept had been approved in Washington in 1999. It reflected the summary experience of NATO resulting from the Balkan wars, and by the present time this concept has largely lost its relevance. At the same time it for the first time fixed a possibility of conducting military crisis response operations outside the traditional zone of responsibility of the Alliance.

The international affairs committee of the State Duma lower house of Russia’s parliament will discuss  prospects for Russia-NATO relations with representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance. For the first time all 12 members of the NATO Wise Men Group led by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will take part in an enlarged meeting of the committee.

First deputy chairman of the Duma’s international affairs committee Leonid Slutsky told journalists that the meeting agenda includes issues of modern international security in the context of the development of NATO’s new strategic development concept that is planned to be approved at the Alliance’s next summit in Lisbon. “The interest towards new quality relations with NATO is growing in Russia,” he stressed.

NATO members believe that they are threatened by many of the same unlawful forces that present a threat to Russia, including terrorism, violent extremism and the spread of nuclear weapons, head of the Wise Men delegation Albright noted. According to her, that is why the Alliance has invited Russia to work together in order to counter these threats.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said for his part that Moscow values the NATO interest towards the RF position on a new strategic concept of the Alliance. “We value NATO’s intentions to hear Russia’s proposals on drafting a new concept of the alliance,” he said.

Russia and NATO intend to sign in 2010 a number of agreements developing the legal base for the mutual cooperation, including in Afghanistan, head of the Duma international affairs committee Konstantin Kosachev told Itar-Tass in an interview earlier. In his view, Russia, in particular, should support the actions of the Alliance in Afghanistan. “Either the NATO operation proves a success or it won’t be a picnic for all of us,” he said.

The visit of the NATO Wise Men group to Russia is a step towards the prevention of antagonism between the basic documents of the RF and North Atlantic Alliance, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Itar-Tass in an interview earlier. He noted the significance of the first ever visit to Russia of a NATO expert group engaged in the development of the alliance’s new strategic concept. Rogozin noted that the Russian leadership and academic community “are positive about taking a chance to influence the formation of the NATO strategic concept,” however, “they do not want to overestimate the importance of this visit.”

“First of all we want to understand the extent of the real influence of the Wise Men group of 12 members on the process of the working out of NATO’s new strategic concept, or this is part of a publicity move,” Rogozin said.

“Secondly, we want this Wise Men group, if it is coming to Russia with serious intentions, to study our approaches to cooperation with NATO and influence, if they have this influence at all, making the future strategic concept not antagonistic to the Russian doctrine documents,” he continued. “Thirdly, we would want them not only to tell us about their policies that we already know rather well, but also to attentively listen to the Russian expert community that is disposed for a meaningful dialogue.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, when launching in September a public discussion on the development of NATO’s new strategic concept promised to make its discussion “unprecedentedly wide and transparent.”

A NATO official told Itar-Tass that the Wise Men are an independent expert group at the North Atlantic Alliance.

The development of the Alliance’ s new strategic concept has been launched at the NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl last April. This document is to determine the tasks of the Alliance for the coming decade and outline methods of their fulfilment. In particular, it considers a number of principally new threats, including possible crises linked with global warming, supplies of energy resources, cyber attacks, sea piracy. NATO’s new Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that the development of this document should become the “most transparent in NATO history.”

The previous concept had been approved in Washington in 1999. It reflected the summary experience of NATO resulting from the Balkan wars, and by the present time this concept has largely lost its relevance. At the same time it for the first time fixed a possibility of conducting military crisis response operations outside the traditional zone of responsibility of the Alliance.

Rogozin said earlier that “in May, we will have a rough draft strategic concept. The idea is to make sure that NATO’s strategic concept does not contain any provisions, points or messages that would run counter to our interests. It is important for us that Russia is mentioned there, in the worst possible case, as a neutral country, or, at best, as a partner for NATO.” He said Russia had no plans to join NATO and does not link its future to participation in military-political alliances.

“First and foremost we rely on ourselves and what is around us is different from that of an average European country. This is also linked to the big size of Russia and the fact that it is destined to be a great power,” Rogozin said. At the same time, he noted that during diplomatic contacts in Brussels “some NATO partners accidentally on purpose suggest: what if NATO starts building its future by taking into account Russia’s interests and maybe even with Russia’s participation?” In this case, the Russia-NATO Council could be replaced by a Russia-NATO Alliance, he added.

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