MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. NATO’s building up of military activity near the Russian borders undermines strategic stability and confidence in the Euro-Atlantic region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference following negotiations with his Portuguese counterpart Augusto Santos Silva on Monday.
"We have attracted our Portuguese partners’ attention to certain actions of the North Atlantic Alliance on building up of military activity near the Russian borders," he noted. "We consider these actions as unfriendly and seriously disrupting strategic stability and confidence in general in Europe and the Euro-Atlantic region."
The parties shared opinions on relations between Russia and the European Union during the negotiations, the Russian minister said. "Both parties expressed willingness to restore them, which would meet the interests of the whole European continent and Eurasia in general," Lavrov stressed.
The Russian foreign minister said that he informed his Portuguese counterpart on the efforts made by Moscow to provide a full and consistent implementation of the Minsk agreements on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and paid attention to Kiev’s counter-productive actions, including the adoption of laws that contradict the spirit and the text of the Minsk agreements and pose a threat to the prospects of a peaceful settlement. The parties shared their opinions and assessments of the situation in the Middle East and northern Africa, including Syria and Libya.
"We are, as usual, interested in the assessments voiced by the Portuguese colleagues on the situation on the African continent and in some Latin American countries," Lavrov said.