NATO ministers to meet on U.S. call for Russia review
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO foreign ministers will meet next week to discuss a U.S. call to review relations with Russia as a result of Moscow's intervention in Georgia.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested the meeting "as an opportunity to consult with our counterparts about the implications of the Russian action in Georgia," the U.S. mission to NATO said on Wednesday.
The U.S. envoy to NATO said on Tuesday that a number of the 26 NATO states believed the U.S.-led military alliance should review its relationship with Russia as a result of the conflict.
NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said the meeting would be held in Brussels on Tuesday.
"The proposal was discussed by ambassadors this morning and there were no objections," a NATO diplomat said.
It was unlikely that a separate emergency meeting of the NATO-Russia Council requested by Moscow to discuss the Georgia crisis would take place before the ministerial session, he said.
Russian NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin has accused the United States of blocking the meeting. The U.S. envoy to NATO Kurt Volker said his country needed more time to prepare.
NATO said on Tuesday that its pledge that Georgia would one day become a member of the alliance still stood, despite the fighting with Russia over South Ossetia.
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the allies agreed that Moscow's use of force had been excessive and disproportionate and would consider Georgian requests for assistance. But he said NATO was not seeking a direct or military role in this conflict.
Russia is fiercely opposed to Georgia's aspirations to join NATO, which would take the Western military alliance right up to its southern border. Many analysts believe that was one of the main causes of this month's fighting.
At an emergency meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, European Union foreign ministers agreed in principle to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia.
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
