*MOSCOW*: The head of Russia’s military general staff and NATO’s supremeallied commander held a rare face-to-face meeting on Thursday to try toease the worst East-West tensions since the Cold War.
US Army General Curtis Scaparrotti and Valery Gerasimov met in Baku,Azerbaijan, less than a week after the United States, Britain and Francestaged missile strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemicalweapons attack by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad – a close ally ofRussia.
In separate statements, NATO and the Russian defence ministry said themeeting discussed military exercises and troop movements, as both sidesaccuse the other of risky deployments in the Baltic states and easternEurope.
Scaparrotti and Gerasimov – who Western military officials say is aproponent of Russia’s strategy of mixing military weaponry with cyberwarfare and disinformation – discussed “questions concerning NATO andRussian military activity in the European region”, the Russian defenceministry said.
NATO said the meeting “focused on issues related to military posture andexercises” – defence parlance for how to avoid military accidents thatmight lead to war. “The two military leaders used the … channel to fosterpredictability and transparency.”
The Russian side said the pair also talked about the seven-year-long civilwar in Syria, where Moscow and the West back opposing sides, and combatingIslamic militants. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that furtherWestern attacks on Syria would bring chaos to world affairs.
Already bridling at NATO’s expansion eastwards into its old Soviet sphereof influence, the Kremlin sees the US-led alliance’s new deterrents in theBaltics and eastern Europe as a threat to its security.
NATO says it is modernising to defend itself against an assertive Russia.The alliance believes Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014,as well as drills like last September’s large-scale Russian exercises alongNATO’s eastern flank, put European stability at risk. As both sides holdexercises and strengthen their militaries, the risk of accidents betweenrival ships, missiles and aircraft grows, with unintended and potentiallydevastating consequences between the two nuclear-armed powers, militaryanalysts say.
Earlier this month Russia tested missiles with live munitions in the BalticSea, alarming Latvia and neutral Sweden. The meeting between Scaparrottiand Gerasimov follows over a year of diplomacy between senior militaryfigures in Russia and the West to try to reestablish formal communicationlinks that broke down following Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
“General Scaparrotti and General Gerasimov agreed to continue using themilitary lines of communication in the future,” NATO said in its statement.
In early 2017, Czech General Petr Pavel, who heads the NATO’s militarycommittee, had his first telephone call in more than two years withGerasimov, paving the way for them to meet last September in Baku.
US General Joseph Dunford, the top US military officer, also met Gerasimovin Azerbaijan last year. – Agencies