NEW YORK. Sept 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Relations between Russia and NATO cannot be described as frozen, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists following a meeting of the Quartet of international mediators for the Middle East peace process in New York on Friday.
"Relations between Russia and NATO have not been frozen," Lavrov said.
"Our NATO partners are trying to suspend all events within the NATO-Russia Council, starting from the ambassadorial level and higher," he said.
Touching on transit of NATO military cargoes to Afghanistan through Russian territory, Lavrov said, "The agreement that was signed with NATO at the April summit in Bucharest is still formally in effect, but there is no chance of putting it into practice, because NATO has not yet coordinated such an agreement with the other countries with which it needs to come to terms about this transit," Lavrov said.
Russia's bilateral agreements with Germany and France regarding the transit of military cargoes to Afghanistan through Russian airspace is in effect and will remain in effect, Lavrov said. It is exactly on the basis of these agreements that these countries are currently using Russian territory to supply their military contingents in Afghanistan, he said.
"We are convinced that Afghanistan is an area where our interests coincide and where we can cooperate, but we are also convinced that attempts to play geopolitical games and punish someone for some individual incidents would not facilitate appropriate interaction on the entire spectrum of our relations," Lavrov said.