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The NATO Secretary-General arrived in the Russian capital yesterday to attend an ambassadorial-level meeting “at 20” of the Russia-NATO Council.

During his talk with George Robertson, the Russian President welcomed the decision to hold a representative forum in Moscow noting the historic significance of the event. He said that in spite of some differences in assessing the world situation the work of the Russia-NATO Council on the whole lived up to Russian expectations.

Vladimir Putin singled out non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, crisis response and the fight against international terror as the key areas of cooperation between Russia and NATO. The fight against terror, the Russian head of state believes, takes on added importance in the light of the recent tragic events, the terrorist attacks in Chechnya and Saudi Arabia. The hand of the terrorists was the same in both cases and the consequences were comparable, according to the Russian leader.

On the situation in the Chechen Republic, Vladimir Putin stated that the destructive forces that organised the terrorist attacks and that relied both on internal resources and foreign support, sought to disrupt the process of political settlement and block the Chechen people’s road to peace.

George Robertson agreed with the President’s assessment of the developments in Chechnya and Saudi Arabia. He stressed that the terrorist attacks had united the world through a shared feeling of outrage and brought home to the world community the need to carry on the fight against terror.