MOSCOW. March 30 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend an informal meeting of the Russia-NATO Council's foreign ministers.
The meeting will take place in Brussels on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
A diplomatic source told Interfax that the event's agenda will include prospects for further cooperation between Russia and NATO in light of the new members being officially admitted to the alliance on March 29. The source said that the Brussels meeting will be the first event to involve representatives from NATO's 26 member-nations, including its new members, instead of the previous 19.
Following the new members' entry into the alliance, the Russia-NATO Council's present format of 20 will likely be expanded. The Russia-NATO Council's next session, which is scheduled for later this spring, is expected to take place in an expanded format, the source said. Russia will "keep a close eye on the process of involving the new members' in NATO's activities in order to avoid any impact on the country's national interests," he said, adding that Russia's attitude to NATO enlargement remains "calmly negative."
Russia will take appropriate measures in response and even reconfigure its armed forces if the stationing of forces along its borders poses a threat to its security, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov told Interfax on Monday.
Four of the seven countries that joined NATO on Monday, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia, have not signed the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, so "a gray area" has been created in which no restrictions have been imposed on weaponry in direct proximity to Russia's borders, he said.
The source said that during the meeting in Brussels, Russia plans to raise the issue of restoring peace to Kosovo, where the international KFOR troops set up under UN auspices are responsible for security. He did not rule out the possibility that Russia would also bring up the issue of conducting a KFOR operation to fully disarm Albanian armed group in the province.
The source said that Lavrov and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will hold their next meeting in Moscow during the secretary general's working visit to Russia on April 7-8.