EU relaunches partnership talks with Russia, NATO agrees re-warming

The European Commissions lead negotiator Eneko Landaburu met, away from the cameras, for two hours with Russia’s EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov in Brussels to relaunch the talks which were frozen on September 1 in protest at Moscow’s actions in Georgia.

The negotiations are aimed at forging an overarching framework to manage the EU and Russia’s diplomatic and commercial ties and ensure constant supplies of Russian oil and gas.

"We discussed in some detail the structure of the future accord and we have fixed the next steps," Chizhov was quoted by AFP as telling the Russian Ria-Novosti agency after the talks.

There was no word from Landaburu and no date announced for the next meeting.

The EU-Russia strategic partnership talks had opened in July, with just one round of formal negotiations before they were frozen after the short war in Georgia.

Russian tanks rolled into its former fiefdom in August and Moscow subsequently recognized as independent the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

An extraordinary EU summit on September 1 decided to freeze the talks with leaders repeating the mantra that "it cannot be business as usual" given the military events.

It was not until November 10, just ahead of an EU-Russia summit, that the 27-member block took the decision to resume the talks, despite the dissenting voice of Lithuania.

No one knows how long the wide-ranging negotiations will take as they will include everything from justice to immigration, human rights and education.

Landaburu has pointedly refused to set a calendar.

"That depends on the will of both sides," he told AFP, saying that he expected to meet Chizhov every six to eight weeks.

EU and NATO members, led by France and Germany, are keen to resume contacts with Russia, which is a major supplier of European natural gas and oil.

NATO AGREES CAUTIOUS RE-WARMING
It was a good day for Moscow diplomatically, with NATO nations agreeing to gradually resume high-level talks with Russia, which were also frozen over the August conflict in the Caucasus.

NATO agreed on Tuesday to gradually resume contacts with Russia suspended after Moscow's intervention in Georgia, and put off a decision on putting Ukraine and Georgia on formal membership tracks.

Meeting in Brussels, the allies reaffirmed a pledge -- which had angered Russia -- that former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine would one day join the alliance and agreed to step up help to them in that process.

But going into her last NATO meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dodged confrontation with allies by dropping previous U.S. resistance to restarting talks with Russia, and reached a compromise in a squabble with Germany over how to manage the entry ambitions of Ukraine and Georgia.

The outcome leaves any real decisions on closer alliance ties with Russia, Georgia and Ukraine to the incoming President-elect Barack Obama.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the 26 NATO states had asked him to see what political contacts would be possible with Moscow and said the suspended ambassador-level NATO-Russia Council would meet again on an informal basis.

"Allies agreed on what I would qualify as a conditional and graduated reengagement with Russia," Reuters quoted him as telling a news conference.

He stressed though that this did not mean NATO had changed its view that Russia had used "disproportionate" force in invading Georgia in August, or that it was acceptable for Russia to threaten to station missiles near NATO borders.

Rice stressed the decision did not mean a return to "business as usual" with Russia.