Brussels - NATO could discuss with Russia a future security structure for Europe, but President Dmitry Medvedev must first clarify his plans - and NATO is in any case not going to dissolve itself, the head of the transatlantic alliance said Wednesday. "If the Russian president ... has proposals to make, and these should be a little bit more concrete, on a future European security structure, then I think the allies are ready to discuss those proposals," said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
But "there is not a shimmer of a chance that, in whatever discussion, NATO would be negotiated away," he added.
De Hoop Scheffer was speaking after a meeting in Brussels, in which NATO foreign ministers said they would be willing to discuss ways of responding to new security threats within the context of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Russia and the United States are members.
But in their joint statement, NATO ministers also called on Russia to refrain from issuing "confrontational statements" and stop being a source of concern for NATO's allies and its partners, for instance by threatening to deploy short range missiles in Kaliningrad.
"Allies are open to dialogue within the OSCE on security perceptions and how to respond to new threats, and seek the widest possible cooperation among participating states to promote a common Euro-Atlantic space of security and stability," ministers said.
At the same time, recent Russian actions and statements, including its "disproportionate" use of force during the August conflict with Georgia, have "seriously diminished our confidence in Moscow's continuing commitment to the founding values and principles of NATO- Russia relations."
The idea of holding a high-level meeting of the 56-member OSCE was first floated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at last month's EU- Russia summit in Nice in Medvedev's presence.
Proponents of the OSCE summit, which could be held in the summer of 2009, say such a meeting could help address simmering mistrust between Russia and the rest of Europe.
Medvedev has long been calling for a "new security architecture" that would set legal limits on the use of force in the continent.
Such an international deal - involving Europe, Canada and the United States - would replace the Helsinki Final Accords of 1975, which laid the basis for peaceful relations between the Soviet Union and the West.
However, some analysts suggest Medvedev's main concern is to undermine NATO's sphere of influence in post-Cold War Europe.
De Hoop Scheffer, who was speaking with Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili by his side, asked, for instance, what Medvedev might mean when he calls for the notions of national sovereignty and territorial integrity to become legally binding.
Moscow now controls Georgia's separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as a result of the August conflict.
Another issue raised by de Hoop Scheffer concerned the future of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which Russia has suspended in protest at US plans to create a missile-defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. The US plans have since prompted the Russian threat to deploy its own missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave surrounded by Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea.
The comments made in Brussels on Wednesday followed Tuesday's decision by NATO foreign ministers to try and mend the rift with Moscow by inviting the alliance's chief to explore the possibility of resuming meetings of the NATO-Russia Council, a forum for direct dialogue which was suspended in the aftermath of the Georgia conflict.
Russia has since welcomed NATO's willingness to achieve a rapprochement.
"This is an indication that there is a growing understanding for Russia's role and for its international authority," said the speaker of the Russian Parliament, or Duma, Viktor Zavarzin, who also chairs the Defence Committee.
Zavarzin also welcomed NATO's decision not to grant immediate Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine, saying that by sticking to its strict membership criteria, the alliance showed it had altered its assessment of the war.
