'Broad agreement' to seek meeting with Russia, says NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg

BRUSSELS: NATO's chief says the alliance has reached "broad agreement" to seek another meeting with Russia before NATO leaders meet in Warsaw this July.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Friday that, at a dinner the previous evening, alliance foreign ministers agreed on a ``dual track approach'' toward Moscow: to keep reinforcing NATO defenses against what they see as a mounting Russian threat, but also to pursue dialogue with the Kremlin.

Stoltenberg said the ministers "all agreed in the current situation that we need a platform (like) the NATO-Russia Council to pursue transparent and predictability." The council, created in 2002 when relations between Russia and NATO were much better, met for the first time in nearly two years last month. That meeting failed to bridge differences between Russia and the U.S.-led alliance.