By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

Why does our enemy want to become our friend?

From Russia Today:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) meets NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Russia-NATO Council Gathering , Sochi, July 4, 2011

Russia has called on NATO to renounce the policy of mutual deterrence and to switch to cooperation in the security field, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated during a visiting session of the Russia-NATO Council in Sochi.

“Dialogue [on the AMD issue] is not going as fast as many had hoped after the Lisbon summit,” Russia’s foreign minister said during a media briefing on Monday after a meeting with NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “But dialogue continues on a bilateral basis, and today we specifically talked about what further opportunities Russia sees in this area.”

Opening the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on the alliance to switch from a policy of mutual deterrence to one of partnership in the security field.

Today we have the opportunity to support our common aim for a real strategic partnership which would open the way for positive interdependence between the Euro-Atlantic states as well as redirect those capabilities of mutual dependence so that we could jointly counter security threats,” Sergey Lavrov said. “The very fact of Russia’s hosting the visiting session of the Russia-NATO Council is an important signal for the public opinion of our countries,” he added…

The main focus of Monday’s meeting centers around the implementation of agreements achieved during the Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon on November 20, 2010. At that time, Moscow and the alliance agreed to build a Russian-NATO partnership based on the principles of mutual trust, the indivisibility of security, transparency and predictability.