Brussels, September 11 (Interfax) - Russia's permanent envoy to NATO on Saturday accused "some Eastern European and Baltic states" of plotting to "sharply antagonize" Russia and NATO by seeking to make the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) put Russia's move to deploy S-300 surface-to-air missiles in Abkhazia on the agenda of its September 15 meeting.
"It will be the first meeting of the [NRC] after the vacations, and we can see that active attempts are being made to sharply antagonize relations between Russia and the alliance. Those attempts are being made by some Eastern European and Baltic states," Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax.
He argued that the S-300 issue was a mere pretext. "I am convinced that it is no more than pure scheming, an attempt to draw attention to themselves and force NATO to remain what it has been for all its past 60 years – a bloc spearheaded against the USSR and then Russia," he said.
Russia is open to dealing with any issue in the NRC, including security for the South Caucasus and the situation in Georgia, Rogozin said.
"But the fact that such a negative move has been made, and in an emotional wrapping as well, means that there are certain forces within the alliance that are extremely unhappy with the atmosphere of conciliation – if you can describe it like this – that has taken shape today between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic bloc," he said.
He expressed confidence that one reason for the alleged scheme was that NATO is due to finish work soon on its new strategic concept.
"In this connection, many Western European countries are pointing to the need to characterize Russia [in the new concept] as a new strategic partner of the North Atlantic alliance, one whose interests must be respected and one that should be interacted with in practical terms," he said.
This "has caused a great stir among some of the professional well-wishers," the envoy said. It explains what, according to him, are attempts to derail the NATO-Russia dialogue. He predicted that such alleged attempts might be quite intensive.
As for the Russian S-300 missiles in Abkhazia, he suggested raising the issue in a package with the U.S. plan to deploy missile defenses in southern Europe and the latest reports on the proposed deployment of missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.
"If our partners insist on raising those issues, we are open to it," he said. However, this would hardly be appropriate today, in view of NATO’s work on its new strategic concept, he argued. "We shouldn’t dramatize our relations at a moment when such an important decision is being made," he said.
NATO defense and foreign ministers are due to hold an informal meeting in mid-October to discuss the draft of the new concept, and Rogozin said that, most likely, one of the objectives of the initiative to raise the S-300 issue was to affect decisions to be made at that meeting.
The NRC is due to have an informal meeting on the fringes of the UN General Assembly session in New York on September 22, the envoy said.
