Ladies and gentlemen! Today in this discussion I’m going to present NATO and Russia mutual relations. How they have developed and transformed in the recent decade, about establishment of NATO-Russia Council and main key areas of NRC performances.
Now I would like to start with evolution of NATO and Russia relations.
How did it evolve?
NATO-Russia relations formally began in 1991 at the inaugural session of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (later renamed the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council), which was created following the end of the Cold War as a forum for consultation to foster a new cooperative relationship with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It was actually while this meeting was taking place that the Soviet Union dissolved. A few years later, in 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program – a major program of practical security and defense cooperation between NATO and individual Partner countries.
In 1996, Russian peacekeepers deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina to serve alongside Allied counterparts in the NATO-led peacekeeping force. The Russian contribution was the largest non-NATO contingent in the force.
On 27 May 1997, in Paris, the NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security was signed, providing the formal basis for NATO-Russia relations. It expressed the common goal of building a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area and set up the Permanent Joint Council (PJC) as a forum for regular consultation on security issues of common concern, aimed at helping build mutual confidence through dialogue.
Much progress was made over the next five years in building mutual confidence and starting to develop a program of consultation and cooperation.
In early 1999, differences over NATO's air campaign to end political and ethnic repression in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo led Russia to suspend its participation in the PJC. Nevertheless, several activities continued without interruption, including peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, Russia played a key diplomatic role in resolving the Kosovo crisis and, in June, when the Kosovo Force was eventually deployed; Russian peacekeepers were a part of it.
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