MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. The United States, which is already militarily present in the Asia Pacific region, is now seeking to "drag" its NATO partners to that region, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko told TASS.

"Along with the United States, which has been present here for a long time, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada are being ‘dragged’ there. Simultaneously, efforts are being made to form a legal basis for NATO’s presence, in the style of agreements on mutual access for armed forces. London, for example, has signed such agreements with Tokyo and Canberra inn recent years," he said.

NATO, n hiss words, is trying to create a "comfortable environment" in the Asia Pacific region via local allies. "They are first of all Japan, South Korea, and Australia, which are happy to share their military infrastructure with the ‘NATO wing.’ It is proved by the regular use of their territories for the deployment of the bloc’s naval, as well as air force potential," Rudenko said.

According to the senior Russian diplomat, East and Southeast Asian countries have an "utterly clear" attitude to the so-called globalization of the NATO mandate. "No one need the alliance here (but for the states, which are affiliating themselves with Euro-Atlantics). Its presence is seen as a challenge to stability and security. The mainstream trend for Asian countries is the formation of wide areas of economically sustainable and safe development, where all states could live and work on an equal and mutually respectful basis in a common environment rather than a bloc-based paradigm of confrontation," he stressed.