MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. The idea of creating a ‘global NATO’ with the participation of Asia-Pacific countries resembles the military alliance of the Axis powers of World War II times, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on the air of Rossiya-24 TV channel.
He noted that the North Atlantic Alliance's new strategic concept explicitly says it plans to develop relations with Asia-Pacific countries and plans to create a global NATO.
"What is the United States doing? They are creating more and more alliances. And this gives grounds for Western analysts, Western political analysts to say just that the West is building new ‘axes’. <...> It is Western analysts, not us, who say that the West begins to build a new axis similar to the one that was created in the 1930s by fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and militaristic Japan," the president stressed.
Putin noted that the strategy directly lists concrete Asia-Pacific region countries, that is "New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea." "And, for example, earlier this year - in January, I think - the UK and Japan signed a reciprocal access agreement. That is, to establish contact and develop relations in the military sphere," the president stressed.