Nikolaus von Twickel, Moscow TimesBRUSSELS — NATO and Russia are facing new dissonances because the Western alliance's upcoming Chicago summit is likely to be held without Moscow's participation.
Speaking at separate news conferences after a NATO-Russia council meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said both sides were committed to continuing cooperation on various fields.
But an ongoing spat over missile defense, uncertainty over an offer from Moscow to open an airport in Ulyanovsk for NATO transports from Afghanistan and Vladimir Putin's looming return to the Kremlin have cast a shadow over the relationship, which was formalized with the creation of the NATO-Russia Council a decade ago.
At the May 20-21 Chicago summit, NATO is set to launch the first phase of its missile shield without having won Moscow's participation as hoped after the Lisbon NATO-Russia summit in 2010.
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