Russia may skip the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21. Vladimir Putin will have taken office as Russian President by that time and attend the G8 meeting. US President Barack Obama passed the talks on European missile shield to Camp David.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said that Russia and the US are unlikely to reach an agreement on missiles at the summit in May. There is no document they approved, while preparation of one would take more time than given before the summit.
Vladimir Yevseyev, Director of the Russian Center for Socio-Political Studies, said that the decision to pass the talks has reasons. The first meeting will be held at Camp David at State Maryland. The US offered to make the G8 and G20 meetings informal. Putin’s skip of the NATO summit in Chicago is understandable and NATO commented on the issue.
According to Yevseyev, NATO’s statements had common theses. Obama and Putin failed to make progress on missile talks in a telephone conversation. Russia will continue development of its air and space defenses.
The point of Deputy Defense Minister Antonov and Deputy Foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov is proven. The situation is at a stalemate, but Russia is not confronting, it just has no reasons for participating in the summit. Formation of independent missile defenses in Europe is useless for Russia, Vladimir Yevseyev emphasizes.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is likely to attend the NATO summit. Azerbaijani MP and political analyst Rasim Musabekov told Vestnik Kavkaza that Azerbaijan has similar goals as other states when cooperating with NATO. The Alliance is the only instrument of global security. Musabekov added that he would not be surprised to see Putin at the NATO summit.
