LONDON (AP) — As NATO leaders traded barbs ahead of a tense summit in London, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia is watching developments at the alliance’s birthday meeting “with great attention.”
The 29-country trans-Atlantic military alliance was founded in 1949 to provide collective security for Europe against what was then the Soviet Union.
Peskov said NATO is “a product of the era of confrontation, the Cold War era,” something he said that Russia does not want to return to.
But he said that “an alliance that was created and shaped by the confrontation ideology, of course, can’t bring anything else” but confrontation.
Turkey’s increasingly close relations with Moscow — and its purchase of Russian air defense systems that are incompatible with NATO equipment — has added to tensions among the allies.
But Peskov said those ties are not hurting NATO.
France, meanwhile, also wants closer ties with Russia.
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