It is important to maintain stability in NATO’s relations with Russia, said Defence Minister, Ine Eriksen Søreide, who faced a series of defense brakes in the United States.
Eriksen Søreide is attending the conference, Reagan National Defense Forum, and will include a meeting with former Defense Secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta.
At the conference, she expects that Donald Trump’s choice of defense minister, retired General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, will be frequently discussed.
Trump took the U.S. election calling for improved relations between the U.S.A. and Russia, and he was accused of receiving hidden Russian support during the election.
Eriksen Søreide believes, however, it is too early to say whether there will be any change in Washington policy toward Moscow.
‘I think everyone would do well to wait until Trump’s administration is inserted and then see what line they take. There are many different voices among those who have so far been
appointed positions in the administration’, she said.
The Defense Minister emphasised that stability in relations with Russia are important for Norway and our allies.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
Panetta! :-/
Reuters picked up on this as well, and here is my/BlackArrow’s comment beneath their article, posted on Yahoo:
I’m an American over here in Norway.
The Russians have only been counter-moving and counter-threatening … everywhere … after the West’s externally fomented Budapest treaty-breaking Kiev coup. (A year ago, French neoconservative guru Bernard-Henri Levy was here in Oslo in the Litteraturhus bragging about his part in that.)
The neocons have been trying to throw out The Nordic Balance of strict neutrality for Sweden and Finland to make them NATO members to threaten Russia with a new 900-mile/1300 kilometer military front along Finland’s border, which would indeed guarantee a nuclear confrontation and World War 3. The British are even more neocon than the Obama administration, and their (neocon) Henry Jackson Society was giving direct input to Parliament on “Arctic policy.” Even McCain was over here … pushing … this insanity.
And Norway is in Jordan training Syrian guerrillas, who will be killing not only Syrian troops but nuclear superpower Russians (and soon Chinese, who have it in for Norway as it is, after the 2010 Nobel Peace prize. And neocon Norway has NO civil defenses for our families … or our children.)
The best, most “predictable”/stabilizing Trump policy would be to pull out of our war crime Syrian war, make a fair treaty with Russia about the Ukraine, and maintain the Nordic Balance policy of strict neutrality, so the Russians can settle down and stop counter-threatening, and we can resume commerce an friendship with them. They are GOOD people, and we … the West … have treated them badly.
Thee Russians do NOT want a war, although they were massively preparing for nuclear World War 3, thinking Hillary would win.
We need the Russians as friends and allies again, just as we need the Norwegians.
Lou Coatney