Russian Foreign Ministry: US is trying to deploy NATO to compete with China

The US is making clear attempts to change the course of NATO to compete with China.

This was stated on Wednesday by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko in an open interview with first Deputy Director General of TASS Mikhail Gusman.

“The US has declared the Communist party of China its opponent, and we see now that they are using all opportunities to pull their allies to this position, including using the resources of NATO,” he said.

According to the Deputy Minister, NATO’s actions reproduce the cold war tracing paper. “It seems that NATO is constantly trying to drag us into a situation that is similar to the cold war. Apparently, this is the only way the Alliance feels comfortable”, – Grushko explained.

The Deputy Foreign Minister noted, the question of why Russia should not join NATO is illogical, since the Alliance works against the Russian Federation. “It is obvious that once again the main purpose of NATO is to neutralize the threat from the East, that is, NATO must consolidate around the Russian threat. Everyone is already talking about this directly, it also proves the deployment of new contingents on the territory of the participating countries, which, by the way, is in violation of the fundamental acts of Russia-NATO,” the diplomat said.

Russia’s dialogue with NATO

Grushko said that all practical cooperation within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council has been curtailed, and there are no signals indicating that it will resume in the near future.

“Now all practical cooperation has been curtailed. Zero. No projects are being implemented. This support in Russian-NATO relations does not exist today. It is completely destroyed. There is no indication that NATO will be ready to resume cooperation with us even in areas where it is in the interests of all,” he said.

Grushko noted that Moscow has not stopped the dialogue with NATO, so the question of the return of the permanent representative of Russia is secondary.

“I would say that this is an absolutely secondary issue,” he said, answering a question about whether it is likely that Russia will again have a permanent representative to NATO. – We did not withdraw from the dialogue with NATO. Our representatives work there and communicate with all NATO delegations and structures.”