LONDON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has written to NATO member states proposing a fundamental overhaul of the relationship between the alliance and Russia, officials said Saturday.
"This does not mean offering Russia NATO membership or joint military operations, but it may well lead to taking common decisions together and taking common action together," an official in Blair's office told United Press International.
The official, who wished to remain anonymous, said the proposal would include the formation of a North Atlantic-Russia council to replace the Permanent Joint Council, which was set up in 1997 as a consultative forum between the alliance and Moscow.
Asked if the arrangement could encompass other former Soviet republics and East Bloc states, the official said Blair's proposals were concerned only with including Moscow in the NATO processes.
Blair wrote recently to NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson, a Briton, and NATO government leaders proposing the changes to reflect the changing political atmosphere since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in close consultation before the recent spate of contacts between western governments and Moscow.
Officials emphasized the proposals did not presage Russian membership of NATO or Russia's inclusion in NATO's integrated military command, but acknowledged that adoption of the measures could mean joint NATO-Russia missions.
Russia and the West have already moved closer since the launch of the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, but officials interpreted Blair's move as a way of formalizing that closer relationship.
NATO and former Soviet bloc states are already in consultation over the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance, an issue greeted with some skepticism by Moscow, but concrete measures toward a wider membership are not expected to be adopted before the Prague summit in November 2002.
Officials said Blair had been holding consultations on Russia's role in NATO before he wrote a four-page letter to his counterparts in the alliance. "This crystallizes what has been discussed for some time," an official source told UPI.
Critics of closer ties with Russia have cited Moscow's human rights record, particularly its conduct of the war in Chechnya. Government sources said NATO hoped to have resolved the differences over Chechnya before the Prague meeting.
