MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has confirmed Russia's negative attitude towards NATO's plans to expand east. Council, Russia was perfectly aware that this would unlikely stop the process of NATO's mechanical enlargement, for the inertia of approaches dictated by the very nature of the North Atlantic alliance is still too strong. The new format of cooperation with NATO did not imply the revision of Russia's negative position on to his new book titled Russia's Foreign Policy in the Globalization Era, which will be presented in Moscow on Thursday.
At the same time, the minister called it fundamentally important that the formation of qualitatively new relations between Russia and NATO will not only be a kind of alternative to NATO enlargement, but will also open prospects for the alliance's transformation in a way that would meet interests of the common European security.
"Time has confirmed that Russia's policy of gradual expansion of cooperation with NATO has proven correct," Ivanov writes. He notes at the same time that the matter does not imply Russia's joining the North Atlantic alliance.