Talking to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed concern about NATo’s decision to halt all military and civilian cooperation. “Decision is unproductive,” Lavrov said according to a tweet sent by the Foreign Ministry.
Foreign Ministers from the 28 nation NATO block, including Norway, announced the decision on Tuesday as a clear message to Moscow in protest of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
In another statement from Moscow on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the wording in NATO’s announcement reminds of verbal sparring of the Cold War times.
“The decision of the NATO Council at the level of the foreign ministers to suspend cooperation with Russia both on military and civilian aspects creates an effect of ‘deja vu’,” the diplomat said. “The wording of the statement rather reminds us of verbal sparring of the Cold War times, while the decision itself brings us six years back, when Brussels ‘froze’ the work of the Russia-NATO Council,” Lukashevich said quoted by Voice of Russia.
The 2008 freeze came after Russia’s intervention in South Ossetia in Georgia.
“It is well known how this ‘freeze’ ended up. NATO initiated a return to cooperation with Russia, stating an ‘all-weather nature’ of cooperation within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council,” Lukashevish added.
Last week, Norway informed Russia that all military cooperation between the two countries was put on hold until end of May.
“We will then conduct a new assessment of planned activities in the light of developments of the situation in Ukraine, and Russia’s further actions and discuss this with our NATO allies,” said Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide BarentsObserver reported.
Cooperation between the Norwegian and Russian border Commissioners will continue as planned, but the annual soldier exchange between FSB’s border guards in Nikel and the Norwegian border guards at Sør-Varanger Garrison has been suspended.
The current situation comes in sharp contrast to the events on the Russia, Norwegian border in June 2013, when the two countries’ Prime Ministers walked in friendship accross the borderline together with the border Commissioners and the Head of Police in Eastern Finnmark.
This week, Dmitri Medvedev made the first formal visit to Russia’s “new land” on Crimea, while Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg was annonced to be NATO’s next Secretary General.
