MOSCOW, April 25 (AVN) - Marshal Igor Sergeyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's assistant on strategic stability issues, will leave for Brussels on Wednesday afternoon to attend a session of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, a spokesman for the presidential administration told the Military News Agency.
The session to be held on Thursday will be the first for Sergeyev, ex-defence minister, after his appointment to the new post, the spokesman said.
Sergeyev is instructed to brief council members on Russia's proposals concerning establishment of the non-strategic antimissile defence system in Europe. It were NATO officials who insisted on getting the detailed explanation. They say they are interested in Russia's initiative on creating that system in Europe, but claim that it is of generic character and cannot be properly analysed.
Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, chief of the Defence Ministry main department on international military co-operation, will also participate in the session. Ivashov will speak on Russia's views concerning the aggravating situation in the Balkans. Particularly, the matters to be discussed are military and political situation and the course of peacekeeping operations in Kosovo as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The session participants also plan to consider possible development of the situation in Montenegro where advocates of separatism won the parliamentary elections.