CORFU, Greece, June 27 (Xinhua) -- NATO and Russia have agreed to resume their military-to-military contacts, which have been frozen since the Russia-Georgia military conflict in August 2008, NATO Secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced on Saturday.
"We restarted our relations at political level. We also agreed to restart military-to-military contacts, which have been frozen since last August," de Hoop Scheffer told reporters at the end of a NATO-Russia foreign ministers' meeting.
Lavrov also said the two sides have agreed to re-launch military-to-military contacts.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer attends a press conference after the NATO-Russia foreign ministers' informal meeting in Corfu, Greece, June 27, 2009. NATO and Russia have agreed to resume their military-to-military contacts, which have been frozen since the Russia-Georgia military conflict in August 2008, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced here on Saturday.
De Hoop Scheffer said he did not exclude the possibility that Russia would allow NATO to transit lethal weapons to Afghanistan via Russian soil. But he stressed that the two sides have yet to go into specifics of military-to-military cooperation.
Russia is now allowing NATO to transit through its territory non-lethal goods only.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a press conference after the NATO-Russia foreign ministers' informal meeting in Corfu, Greece, June 27, 2009. NATO and Russia have agreed to resume their military-to-military contacts, which have been frozen since the Russia-Georgia military conflict in August 2008, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Sergei Lavrov announced here on Saturday.
De Hoop Scheffer said cooperation on the fight against piracy off Somalia is another area for cooperation as both NATO and Russia are conducting anti-piracy operations in the region.
The NATO chief also expressed the hope that Russia would send warships again to participate in NATO's naval campaign to protect energy supply routes in the Mediterranean.
NATO and Russia should cooperate on Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and counter-narcotics, he said.
De Hoop Scheffer proclaimed the NATO-Russia Council, under which the foreign ministers are meeting, is up and running again. "The NATO-Russia Council leaves Corfu stronger."
Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis (C, front) and NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (L, front) preside over the informal foreign ministers meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) on Greece's Ionian island of Corfu, June 27, 2009.
NATO suspended high-level political contacts with Russia after the Russia-Georgia military conflict. Saturday's ministerial meeting has been the highest-level political contact between the two sides since then.
De Hoop Scheffer said the Georgia issue is no longer a stumbling block in NATO-Russia relations although the two sides still have fundamental differences.
"Despite the fact that there are differences ... the spirit (ofthe meeting) was one of wanting to cooperate," he said.
There are lots of things in the NATO-Russia Council that the two sides can discuss and take decisions on, he added.
NATO, however, insists that the ministerial meeting does not mean that the alliance is returning to "business as usual" with Russia.
"It means we are back to business. It was not the business that was totally frozen. But at the political level and at the military-to-military level, I expect we will leave Corfu back to business," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai prior to the meeting.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband denied that NATO is resuming business as usual with Russia. "Business as usual suggests you've forgotten what happened. Russia has not forgotten what happened; and Europe has not forgotten what happened," he told reporters upon arrival, referring to the Russia-Georgia conflict.
NATO allies are still opposed to Russia's recognition of Georgia's two breakaway regions -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- as independent states and to Moscow's veto of presence of international observers in the two regions.
Lavrov said on Saturday that the NATO-Russia Council should not have been suspended in the first place as the mechanism was created to discuss crisis situation.
He also said that the founding principles of the NATO-Russia Council, including the principle of "indivisibility of security" among all member states of the Council, should be made legally binding.
Lavrov demanded that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's proposals for a new European security architecture be discussed in the Council. NATO has said it does not oppose discussions in the Council, but the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should be the primary forum for this issue.
Lavrov said Moscow's decisions with regard to Abkhazia and South Ossetia are irreversible. Asked whether Russia would restore diplomatic relations with Georgia, Lavrov said it was not Moscow that severed formal ties with Georgia. It is up to Georgia to restore diplomatic ties with Russia.
On the U.S. plan to deploy a strategic missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, Lavrov said his country welcomes U.S. President Barack Obama's intention to freeze the project. He said Russia hopes a dialogue with Washington would lead to a result that is acceptable to European countries as well as the United States and Russia.
Political relations between NATO and Russia began to thaw in December 2008. But a meeting at ministerial level had failed to materialize.
Russia angrily pulled out of a foreign ministers' meeting planned for the second half of May 2009 after NATO expelled two Russian diplomats for alleged spying. Russia also strongly protested against NATO's military exercises in Georgia in May-June 2009.
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