The United States is not preparing for a NATO-Russia Council meeting during a NATO summit on May 20-21, the State Department said.
“There will not be a NATO-Russia Council meeting at Chicago,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed to journalists on Monday.
Earlier both Russia and the United States said they believed it to be senseless to hold the meeting because they have not coordinated positions on a number of issues, including missile defense.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said during Thursday’s meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) at the level of foreign ministers in Brussels that the alliance would like Russia to join the talks on Afghanistan during the summit, which will also focus on missile defense.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to say if Russia would attend.
Relations between NATO and Moscow have grown sour lately over the alliance’s European missile shield plans, but the sides have cooperated closely in the war in Afghanistan.