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Steinmeier: "New Start in NATO-Russia Relations"
Commenting on the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on the Greek island of Corfu, Federal Foreign Minister Steinmeier noted that "we've succeeded in making a new start in NATO-Russia relations." The important thing now, however, was for words to be followed by deeds.
At the end of the deliberations between NATO foreign ministers and their Russian counterpart on June 27, Steinmeier summed up the results as follows:
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- Foreign Minister Steinmeier in conversation with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner at the Informal NATO-Russia Foreign Ministers Meeting in Corfu.
- (© NATO)
"I'm satisfied with the way things have gone today. This is a new start for relations between Russia and NATO. We have offered to resume military cooperation with Russia.
But this is not going to function after just one meeting. We'll have to see whether the speeches we've heard today will be followed up with action.
I feel pretty confident that everyone realizes there are bound to be crises also in future and that we'll either resolve them together or not at all."
Russia accepts offer of military cooperation
Steinmeier confirmed that Russia planned to take up the offer of military cooperation. Whether this would involve collaborating on Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean or efforts to combat piracy had been left open for the time being. Russia had made clear, however, that it would fulfil its bilateral commitments concerning transport to Afghanistan.
Meeting of OSCE foreign ministers
The foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who had also assembled on Corfu for informal discussions on June 27 and 28, agreed on a structured and theme-oriented dialogue on the future of European security. Their discussions took place in particular against the background of the proposals put forward by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for a formal treaty on a new European security architecture.
At the next regular OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Athens in December ministers are to be presented with a coherent proposal for a security dialogue encompassing all three dimensions of the OSCE's comprehensive definition of security. This so-called Corfu Process is to be open-ended in terms of time frame and results.
Before the start of the talks, Steinmeier argued that the first priority was to grasp the opportunities offered by the current improvement in US-Russian relations:
"A European security treaty may be a longer-term perspective. It's important, however, not to call existing organizations and bodies into question. Such a discussion must not cause us to lose sight of the opportunities that are now there to be seized.
Especially in the light of recent comments by President Obama, solutions to a number of quite concrete problems are now likely to be feasible, including the extension of the CFE Treaty, for example, the issue of missile defence or conventional disarmament. We Europeans urgently need to see progress on these issues."
