NATO-Russia Council to meet at Brussels on 31 October

The NATO-Russia Council will hold an ambassadorial meeting in Brussels on October 31, a NATO official told TASS on Friday.

"A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) will take place on October 31, 2018. This is part of NATO’s twin-track approach of strong defense and meaningful dialogue with Russia, and will be the eighth meeting of the NRC in the last two years," the official said.

Diplomatic sources told TASS that the meeting’s participants would discuss Washington’s plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), the situation concerning conventional armed forces in Europe, including NATO’s unprecedentedly large-scale Trident Juncture 2018 drills, which involve over 50,000 troops. In addition, the parties will reiterate their positions on the Ukrainian crisis.

On October 24, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Brussels that consultations on holding a NATO-Russia Council meeting were underway, though he did not announce any dates. Stoltenberg pointed out that in the past years, NATO and Russia had discussed military transparency and the deployment of each other’s troops, and also held briefings on military exercises. In particular, NATO has held a briefing on the Trident Juncture 2018 exercise, while one of the Russian military’s briefings was dedicated to the Vostok 2018 (or East 2018) drills.

Before 2014, the Council used to meet several times a month, but the Ukrainian crisis hampered its activities. In the spring of 2014, following Crimea’s reunification with Russia, NATO suspended practical cooperation with Moscow, but made a decision to preserve the Council as a platform for political dialogue.