Brussels - NATO should open informal diplomatic talks with Russia after it broke off formal ties following August's Russian invasion of Georgia, alliance foreign ministers agreed Tuesday. And while Georgia and Ukraine can be certain of joining the alliance at an unspecified point in the future, they will not get a fast track to membership by sidestepping the formal procedure of the Membership Action Plan (MAP), the meeting in Brussels agreed.
At the meeting, NATO members "agreed on what I'd qualify as a conditional and graduated re-engagement with Russia ... I as Secretary General have been mandated as I see fit, and of course if the other party agrees, to see what political contacts can be possible," NATO's top official, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said.
"This doesn't mean that we now suddenly agree with the Russians on their disproportionate use of force in August ... We fundamentally disagree, but we'll try to re-engage," he said.
In August, NATO foreign ministers condemned Russia's invasion of Georgia, and declared that there would be "no business as usual" as long as Russian troops remained in the country, and decided that there would be no more high-level meetings of the formal NATO-Russia Council as long as the situation lasted.
But ahead of Tuesday's meeting, a number of NATO member states, especially European powers such as Germany and France, pushed for a re-launch of talks, saying that the alliance would have nothing to gain from refusing to talk with Russia.
"From our point of view there's no other solution with this very special neighbour, no other way to be sure of their demands and concerns, except to talk to them," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
But states such as Britain, the United States and Poland said that the alliance should be careful to avoid any appearance that it was softening its stance on the Georgian war - leading ministers to agree on a tentative and informal approach.
"This isn't an issue of isolating Russia, but it's a question of what kinds of contacts are appropriate. And this (call for informal talks) is a completely appropriate thing to do," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
The ministers also re-stated a promise made by their political leaders in April that Ukraine and Georgia would join the alliance at an unspecified future point.
They called on the commissions which NATO has set up with the two aspirants to intensify work on promoting reform, in a bid to move them closer to NATO military and democratic standards.
But they stressed that there would be no short cuts to membership, saying that the aspirants would both have to carry out deep political and military reforms and gain unanimous approval to enter the Membership Action Plan, which prepares countries for NATO entry.
"For the moment, the possibility which was evoked in Bucharest has not been fulfilled. We will have to carry on work in the commissions, it did not seem possible to go further today," Kouchner said.
"MAP has not ceased to exist, there was no decision taken on it by foreign ministers, but you can't say it evaporated: It's still there," Scheffer said.
Observers saw that as a victory for Germany and France, who have long maintained that the two countries are not ready for membership, and a blow for the US, which is their most vocal backer.
But Rice insisted that the US was happy with the result, pointing out that "we wanted to reaffirm the Bucharest decision, and we have done that. Everyone knows that this is going to be a long process."
The meeting is set to continue on Wednesday with a discussion of operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Gulf of Aden.
