Moscow, May 05: Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin has said Moscow is tying helicopter supplies to Afghanistan with permission to sell arms to NATO countries.
“We are seeking an opportunity for the Russian defense industry to trade its products within the alliance’s member states. We will earn money and they will acquire reliable quality weapons,” Rogozin said on Tuesday.
He also stated that Moscow is considering sending weapons to Afghanistan to assist the present government. The Alliance, in return, might lift all barriers for free military trade between Russia and NATO member states.
In December 2009, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on Moscow to supply Kabul with military helicopters.
NATO and Russia have already begun exercising a joint system for air traffic coordination. This will be the first NATO-Russia system of this kind to be fielded.
The new system has two coordination centers in Warsaw and Moscow, and local coordination sites in Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don, Murmansk (Russia), Warsaw (Poland), Bodo (Norway), and Ankara (Turkey). In these nations, training and entry-level exercises are already ongoing.
A NATO-Russia Operational Exercises Team (OET), led by the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency, has been formed to conduct the exercises and develop the exercise scenarios under the new system. OET will consist of experts from France, Norway, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United States, EUROCONTROL and NATO’s military commands.
——–Agencies