MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - The Russian Defense Ministry is continuing to get ready for a planned global conference on security in Moscow in May despite notifications by the United States and NATO that they are suspending their military cooperation with Russia, a Russian deputy defense minister said on Thursday.
"In spite of the statements of the U.S. and the North Atlantic alliance about the suspension of military and military technological cooperation with Russia, we can see no reason to halt preparations for the upcoming conference," Anatoly Antonov told reporters.
"We are continuing our routine work, we haven't made any decisions to cancel or put off that conference or change its format," he said.
Antonov said invitations to the forum had been sent to Russian leaders, to the defense ministers of member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, key nations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the United States and Canada, to the leaders of international organizations - the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the European Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Arab League, - to leading nongovernmental organizations, and to prominent scholars.
"We see the purpose of the upcoming conference as offering a floor for maximally open debates on strengthening global security and on potential solutions to current regional crises with an emphasis on analyses of military and political aspects of modern security problems," Antonov said.