Relations with Russia will be one of the central issues to be discussed at a ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Alliance to be held on March 5.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said on Wednesday there was no official road map for the restoration of relations with Russia.
He said one or several informal meetings at the level of ambassadors would be held before the end of February.
Appathurai refrained from saying when the Russia-NATO Council might resume operation but said that was one of the goals of the process of restoring relations with Russia launched at the alliance’s ministerial meeting on December 2, 2008.
NATO suspended the work of the Russia-NATO Council and some aspects of cooperation with Russia after Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia. The alliance considered Russia’s actions during the conflict disproportionate and came up with a number of conditions for Moscow, urging it to comply with the peace accords signed with Georgia with France’ s mediation.
On December 2, the NATO foreign ministers confirmed that Russia had fulfilled its obligations and announced a gradual and balanced resumption of relations with Russia.
Russian permanent representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said earlier in the day that Russia and NATO planned to hold an informal meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of ambassadors before the end of February.
“We plan to hold an informal meeting before the ministerial session of the North Atlantic Council scheduled for March 5. The ministers will discuss the details of NATO-Russia relations and I hope this will pave the way to a official meeting of the Russia-NATO Council before the end of March,” Rogozin said.
He said the nearest meeting with the ambassadors of the 26 NATO countries in an informal mode “will focus on the discussion of practical aspects of our cooperation, particularly on Afghanistan”.
