Russia-NATO Council to Meet if Agenda Coordinated

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said that if a corresponding agenda were to be coordinated on the basis of the rules of the NATO council work, a session of the council would take place.

MUNICH (Sputnik) – The Russia-NATO council will meet if its agenda were coordinated, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said Saturday.

"If a corresponding agenda were to be coordinated on the basis of the rules of the NATO council work, a session of the council would take place," Meshkov said.

The NATO-Russia Council was created in 2002 as a mechanism for consultations and cooperation between NATO member states and Russia on a wide range of security issues. This format was suspended in 2014 amid stained relations over the Ukrainian crisis, as the alliance accused Moscow of the involvement in the conflict.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed the allegations and stressed that NATO's military expansion and increased presence near Russian borders undermines regional security.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg discussed on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference the possibility of holding a Russia-NATO Council meeting.