Russia has received an official invitation to attend NATO's summit in Lisbon in November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We received an invitation just as I was about to leave for New York [on September 19]. We are now drafting a report to the president," Lavrov told Rossiya 1 television on Saturday.
However, a final decision on Russia’s participation in the NATO summit will be made by President Dmitry Medvedev the minister said.
"We need to understand a little bit more, and we have agreed to continue consultations with the NATO secretary general on the alliance’s vision of the event and what we can approach it with," Lavrov said.
"Any event is not just what is shown on TV. We need to understand the result of any event, especially such a large-scale one," he said.
NATO’s new strategic concept is a key issue that Russia views as a matter of concern in its relations with the alliance, Lavrov said.
NATO’s Wise Men Group led by Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright formulated recommendations behind the new concept, he said.
"The recommendations that were formulated in the end include plenty of ideas which, we think, reflect modern-day realities and needs from the point of view of using NATO resources to tackle global problems. But, at the same time, these recommendations contained quite ambiguous phrases, including NATO’s ambivalent position towards Russia," Lavrov said.
These recommendations are ambiguous, he said.
"On one hand, according to this draft concept, we are a partner, but, on the other hand, it implies that NATO’s new members should be protected from us," Lavrov said.
Lavrov said he is worried that the recommendations do not rule out the possibility of applying Article 5 of the Washington collective defense treaty.
"These recommendations retain the possibility of projecting force outside the territory of NATO countries, effectively in any part of the globe and not necessarily with the UN Security Council’s permission," the minister said.
Russia will decide whether or not to attend the NATO summit in Lisbon after it receives answers to two questions, Lavrov said.
"The first question is: what attitude will be chosen towards Russia in the end? And the second question is: how will NATO regard itself in relation to international law, the UN Charter and the prerogatives of the [UN] Security Council?" he said.
Lavrov said he had asked these questions at last week’s informal ministerial meeting between Russia and NATO.
"They heard us. I said that naturally, I would submit a concrete and detailed report about our discussions to the president. The issue will be addressed during preliminary discussions, but, in my opinion, the topics we brought up today were heard by our partners. I hope they will treat them seriously," Lavrov said.
