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EU rebuff Russian calls for new security structure
AFP - Sunday, March 22
BRUSSELS (AFP) - - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday rebuffed Russian calls for a new security architecture in Europe, insisting that existing bodies like the NATO-Russia Council could do the job.
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"The security of Europe has schemes, has organisations, has structures and they are working properly," he said, alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"There is not a big need to put down the structures of security."
Solana, speaking at the Brussels Forum conference, said that questions of "hard security" could be dealt with in the NATO-Russia Council, where high level talks have been frozen over Moscow's war with Georgia in August.
"I think it is possible to make progress in the short term, by working in an effective manner in the NATO-Russia Council. I think there is room for improvement there," he said.
Lavrov, whose country is concerned about NATO expanding ever closer to its borders, said security in Europe was based around organisations or structures that essentially only looked after themselves, to the exclusion of non-members.
"They are all about security of clubs or organisations," he said, referring also to the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "We want to change this situation."
Russia last year called for a new, legally binding security pact in Europe to replace what it says are outdated arms control treaties from the Cold War and to help avoid crises such as the war in Georgia.
Lavrov argued that some organisations operated on the basis of political principles while others had binding laws and he called for a list of security standards to be drawn up that would be respected by all.
"What we suggest is to get together and make these principles legally binding," he said. "We also want this exercise to agree on principles of arms control and make them legally binding."
NATO has generally reacted coolly to the Russian plan, which it fears is simply a plan by its old Cold War foe to do away with the 26-nation military alliance, formed 60 years ago to counter Moscow's influence.
Solana acknowledged Moscow's past concerns that the NATO-Russia Council, established in 2002 to discuss issues of mutual interest and air differences, was sometimes "NATO plus Russia, not NATO and Russia".
But he said that today "everybody is on the same footing. I think we have room there to move on."
"There is tremendous amount of space to get that NATO-Russia Council to do much better than it has done so far," he said, noting that there were a lot in the forum's founding act that had not been applied.
"In the hard security basket, I think a lot can be done with the structures we have today if we use them properly," added Solana, who was NATO Secretary General from 1995-1999 before becoming the European Union's top diplomat.
He also expressed optimism that a meeting next month between US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev would help spark some movement on arms control issues.
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EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has rebuffed Russian calls for a new security architecture in Europe, insisting that existing bodies like the NATO-Russia Council could do the job.
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