{"id":12122,"date":"2021-10-21T10:44:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T02:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=12122"},"modified":"2021-10-21T10:44:09","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T02:44:09","slug":"nato-seeking-ways-to-engage-with-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=12122","title":{"rendered":"NATO seeking ways to engage with Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BRUSSELS, Oct 21 &nbsp;&#8212; Despite Russia&#8217;s decision to suspend its mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and to close the alliance&#8217;s offices in Moscow, NATO&#8217;s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that it will continue seeking ways to engage with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Addressing a press conference ahead of the two-day meeting of NATO defence ministers, Stoltenberg said NATO regretted Russia&#8217;s decision &#8220;which does not promote dialogue and mutual understanding.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He added that NATO&#8217;s policy remained consistent, and it remained &#8220;open to dialogue, including through the NATO Russia Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this month, NATO expelled eight Russian diplomats over allegations that they were conducting activities that were not in line with their accreditation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg\" alt=\"nato\" class=\"wp-image-12123\" width=\"522\" height=\"296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg 774w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-768x437.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-176x100.jpg 176w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-350x199.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stoltenberg said the alliance regretted the fact that &#8220;the relationship between NATO and Russia is now at the lowest point since the end of the Cold War.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;For us, that&#8217;s actually not an argument against dialogue, that&#8217;s an argument in favor of dialogue, because it is exactly when times are difficult, we have challenges and problems as we have now, that we need to sit down and talk,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We will continue to work for dialogue because we believe that Russia, our biggest neighbor&#8230; being there close to NATO; there&#8217;s no way that we cannot talk to them and therefore we continue to strive for a better relationship with Russia knowing that this is difficult,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow decided to suspend the operation of the Russian Permanent Mission to NATO in retaliation for the alliance&#8217;s &#8220;unfriendly actions.&#8221; Russia is also suspending the activities of the NATO Military Liaison Mission in Moscow and terminating the work of the NATO Information Office there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NATO announced the expulsion of eight members of the Russian mission in Brussels on Oct&nbsp;6, calling them &#8220;undeclared Russian intelligence officers.&#8221; Additionally, the number of Russian staff at the mission was reduced by half from 20 to 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before that, the size of the Russian mission in Brussels was reduced twice unilaterally by NATO in 2015 and 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bernama.com\/en\/world\/news.php?id=2015328\">BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BRUSSELS, Oct 21 &nbsp;&#8212; Despite Russia&#8217;s decision to suspend its mission to the North Atlantic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",774,440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-300x171.jpg",300,171,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440-768x437.jpg",640,364,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",640,364,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",774,440,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",774,440,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",774,440,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",774,440,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/210715-nac-flags_rdax_775x440.jpg",720,409,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?cat=59\" rel=\"category\">World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12124,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12122\/revisions\/12124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}