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Russia ready to resume working with NATO in form of equal dialogue — lawmaker

Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference last Thursday that NATO was considering a possibility of holding a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council

MOSCOW, January 28 /TASS/. Russia will resume work with NATO if the Western partners are ready for an equal dialogue rather than an "ardent monologue", which they have been trying to impose on Russia of late, Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Federation Council Committee for International Affairs, told journalists on Thursday.

Commenting the words of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that time had come for holding a Russia-NATO Council, Kosachev said that NATO and other Western organizations, which are too much preoccupied with sanctions and isolation, had not noticed that they had replaced a dialogue with flamboyant speeches long ago.

"That is why the key issue is whether our vis-a-vis are ready for a full-fledged dialogue or they are missing an audience for presenting unilateral claims? We are ready to accept the first option here and now. We should wait if the second option is in question," the lawmaker said.

Kosachev was also surprised at how Stoltenberg’s words had been interpreted in Western media outlets, which said that Western countries were eagerly looking for any opportunity to conduct dialogue with such a difficult partner as Russia.

"But it was the Western side that severed all the contacts. Russia has never stopped saying vocally and loudly that it was ready for dialogue. It was ready for it at all the stages of the Ukrainian, Syrian and all other crises. But we always stumbled upon the undiplomatic ‘we can do without you.’ So we see how they did that," Kosachev concluded.

Stoltenberg told a news conference last Thursday that NATO was considering a possibility of holding the Russia-NATO Council but a decision would be made later after negotiations with a Russian delegation.

The Russia-NATO Council suspended sessions after NATO had stopped all military cooperation with Russia over differences caused by the Ukraine crisis on April 1, 2014.