page_title: Russia–NATO relations
section_title: NATO–Russia Council
hierarchical_section_title: Russia–NATO relations / NATO–Russia Council
caption_attribution_description: English: BUCHAREST. Meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.Русский: БУХАРЕСТ. Заседание Совета Россия–НАТО.
context_page_description: NATO–Russian relations, relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and since that time, NATO and Russia have signed several important agreements on cooperation. According to Vladimir Putin, he proposed the idea of Russia joining NATO to President Bill Clinton in 2000 during a visit to Moscow, to which Clinton responded that he "didn't mind".
  The Russia–NATO Council was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects. Cooperation between Russia and NATO now develops in several main sectors, including: fighting terrorism, military cooperation, cooperation on Afghanistan, industrial cooperation, and weapons non-proliferation.
  On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend co-operation with the Russian Federation, in response to the Ukraine crisis. On 18 February 2017, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said he supported the resumption of military cooperation with the NATO alliance.
context_section_description: The NATO-Russia Council was created on 28 May 2002 during the 2002 NATO Summit in Rome. The council has been an official diplomatic tool for handling security issues and joint projects between NATO and Russia, involving "consensus-building, consultations, joint decisions and joint actions." 
  "Joint decisions and actions", taken under NATO-Russia Council agreements, include fighting terrorism, military cooperation (joint military exercises and personnel training), cooperation on Afghanistan (Russia providing training courses for anti-narcotics officers from Afghanistan and Central Asia countries in cooperation with the UN), transportation by Russia of non-military freight in support of NATO's ISAF in Afghanistan, industrial cooperation, cooperation on defence interoperability, non-proliferation, and other areas.
  The heads of state for NATO Allies and Russia gave a positive assessment of NATO-Russia Council achievements in a Bucharest summit meeting in April 2008, though both sides have expressed mild discontent with the lack of actual content resulting from the council. In January 2009, the Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said the NATO-Russia council was "a body where scholastic discussions were held." A US official shared this view, stating: "We want now to structure cooperation more practically, in areas where you can achieve results, instead of insisting on things that won't happen."
caption: Meeting of the NATO–Russia council in Bucharest, Romania on 4 April 2008
exif: {}