MOSCOW. Jan 26(Interfax-AVN) - Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin has said that he is going to raise the issue in NATO that under no condition it is acceptable to freeze the activity of the Russia-NATO Council.
"I will insist that neither the U.S. side nor anyone else has the right to unilaterally violate the functioning of the structure which should support a multilateral political dialogue on the exchange of confidential information in moments that are crucial in certain conditions," Rogozin told Interfax on the eve of an informal meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels, which was frozen almost six month ago after the August events in the Caucasus.
The issue is about the basic principles of cooperation provided for in the Rome declaration, which resulted in the establishment of the Russia-NATO Council.
"It is absolutely apparent today that if incidents similar to the one that resulted in freezing the Council at the most crucial and responsible moment persist, then this mechanism should be revised," Rogozin said.
The current mechanism of the Russia-NATO Council, which includes consultations in its framework, "must survive and be subject to no doubts despite any event and moreover must not depend on the situation or actions of one of its participants," he said. "Now given the change of the administration in Washington, there is a possibility to come to this understanding," the envoy said.
The informal meeting of the Council does not mean the resumption of full-scale cooperation and what is more any new quality, he said.
"We can say that relations will resume cautiously, and will be accompanied by the emergence of 'grounds' of practical cooperation and interaction between Russia and NATO in the areas where we have a common enemy or a common need to act jointly maintaining military contacts," Rogozin said, noting that this will contribute to restoring confidential dialogue.
It is impossible to do without "dismantling the debris of the past," he said. "Our partners should not have the impression that we are returning to the previous track of cooperation. This is unlikely to happen without resoling two interconnected issues: the first one is the restoration of confidence and the second is practical interaction. One cannot exist without the other," the envoy said
Rogozin expressed the opinion that the next step in Russia-NATO interaction should be a meeting of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer with the head of the Russian delegation to the Munich conference on February 6 - 8, who is expected to be Deputy Russian Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov. "This meeting could discuss contacts at the highest political level," he said.
Rogozin did not rule out that a number of issues linked to cooperation in conflict regions will be discussed on Monday. "As far as I know, separate delegations are going to introduce for discussion cooperation on Afghanistan, the fight against piracy, interaction on overcoming the drug aggression threat and some others," Rogozin said.