Today's Russia-NATO Council foreign-ministerial session was no exception. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary General, both paid ample attention to Ukrainian developments, which are a ticklish matter in Russia-West contacts.
A foreign-ministerial session of the OSCE, or Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which recently gathered in Bulgaria's Sofia, saw a fairly reticent confrontation over the Ukrainian issue. Today's meeting on the NATO headquarters was more constructive in its statements. Thus, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer called not to regard the issue as manifesting East-West rivalry. He also highlighted a joint statement that crowned today's session-the Sofia conferees of a few days ago failed to come to such an accord.
Sergei Lavrov also said he was glad to see the conferees' accord. Their shared conclusion strongly warns against whatever intervention in Ukrainian domestic affairs. The final statement qualifies violence and its instigation as inadmissible. Russia's Foreign Minister enthusiastically approves that point, as well. The statement is all the more important as confrontation was really whipped up in Ukraine, he stressed. The minister hopes the incitement will stop.
"There was no confrontation here," Mr. Lavrov said to a news conference on the NATO HQ in Brussels to describe the session. His audience heaved a sigh of relief-the Cold War will not revive.
