NATO official negotiates with Russia's General Staff representative

Colonel General Yury Baluyevsky, the deputy head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, is currently negotiating with Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Guido Venturoni.

The Italian admiral arrived in Russia on May 26th to inaugurate the opening of a NATO liaison office in Moscow.

According to Baluyevsky, the office is being inaugurated on the eve of the 5th anniversary of the signing of a Declaration of a Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council in a "nineteen plus one" format.

Touching on an upcoming Russia-NATO summit, which is due in Rome on May 28th, Baluyevsky said that the heads of states were bound to sign "a historical document to give a new quality to relations between Russia and the alliance." He stressed that Russia and NATO would from that moment on function as a united system, in which each of the parties involved would be "responsible for the decisions they made." On his part, Admiral Venturoni agreed that the upcoming signing of documents on a new format of the Russia-NATO relationship was "a historical step forward." "From now on, we shall all be responsible for the safety of Russia and for the safety of NATO," he said.