By RIA Novosti,
Brussels : NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held an informal meeting on Friday with Russia’s envoy to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, a spokesman for the Russian mission to NATO said.
He said the diplomats met for lunch in a restaurant in Brussels, without giving any details of their conversation.
NATO foreign ministers agreed on December 2 at a meeting in Brussels to gradually resume contacts with Moscow, suspended after Russia’s armed conflict with Georgia in August.
NATO called Russia’s military response to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia “disproportionate” and condemned Moscow’s decision in late August to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway province, as independent states.
In response to NATO’s decision to halt cooperation, Russia froze a number of programs, including the Partnership for Peace program, halted cooperation with NATO’s Moscow office and called off the NATO chief’s visit to Moscow. Russia also canceled all joint-NATO naval training, including NATO visits to Russian ports.
Russia did not halt work with NATO in regard to arms control, cooperation in airspace, and the war in Afghanistan.