Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday repudiated what he said were the West's efforts to drop a new "Iron Curtain" before Russia and blamed NATO for sparking war last month in Georgia. "We are in effect being pushed down a path that is not based on a full-fledged, civilized partnership with other countries, but on autonomous development, behind deaf walls, behind an Iron Curtain," Medvedev said in a speech to civil society groups in Moscow.
"I again want to stress: this is not our path. There is no sense for us in going back to the past, we have made our choice," he said.
The speech repeated calls for a new Euro-Atlantic security partnership with Moscow and accusation that NATO, "a child of the Cold War," was stuck in its thinking.
Medvedev told his audience Friday that the alliance's role in the recent conflict proved the need for a new security structure.
"Even those who in informal and private talks tell me it is unnecessary because NATO provides for everything, now understands this urgency," Medvedev was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying.
"What has NATO solved, what has it secured? NATO only provoked the conflict, and not more than that."
Defence ministers from NATO's 26 member states are meeting in London on Friday to discuss areas for reform in the alliance.
