PRESS RELEASE

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Russia Ready To Re-establish Military Ties with NATO If NATO De-Escalates

Dec. 28, 2016 (EIRNS)—Russia’s Ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, said, during a videoteleconference sponsored by the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency yesterday, that Russia is ready to restore military ties with NATO if NATO shows a willingness to de-escalate.

"We consider that if the NATO member states are really interested in de-escalation in the military sphere, and their high-ranking representatives repeatedly voice this position, then one of the tasks should be to establish normal military ties,"

he said, reports TASS, adding that Russia is ready for this and had put forward a plan for doing so at the last NATO-Russia Council meeting.

Grushko also ridiculed the notion, put forward very loudly and repeatedly by some parties in both Eastern Europe and Washington, D.C., that Russia has ambitions towards the Baltic states.

"Any suspicions we may be harboring some aggressive designs against the Baltic countries break all reasonable bounds," he said. Grushko said that NATO was going ahead with its military build-up and considering the possibility of sending troops there on a permanent, not rotational basis.

"As a result we find ourselves amid a logic that runs counter to the fundamental interests of all countries, including the Baltic ones," Grushko said. "Regrettably, in a situation like this no diplomatic or political methods will work. This is an unreal world,"

he added.