Chief of Armed Forces Eirik Kristoffersen believes that Norway and Russia must talk more to reduce tensions between the countries.
“We had a dialogue during the Cold War, and we see that the dialogue that is taking place in Afghanistan with the Taliban is absolutely crucial for us to move forward,” Kristoffersen said, according to Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).
The Chief of Defense points out that this dialogue will not necessarily solve anything but that it must still be pursued. Kristoffersen says there is no doubt that both Russia and China have become more assertive.
A challenging situation
“It is a challenging security situation. The most dangerous thing that can happen to Norway, NATO, and the world is an open conflict with Russia. Fortunately, it is not so likely,” he added.
Minister of Defense Frank Bakke-Jensen (H), for his part, believes that Russia should show more openness and predictability.
“When Russia did an exercise just off Andøya, it was an example where we think that, as good neighbors, they could take some action to be more predictable,” he noted.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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VERY glad to see this. It never hurts to be friends – even/especially if NATO starts a war with Russia somewhere and then wants to attack Russia in the North and the Laws of War need to be respected.
Russia Today is claiming that the Biden administration is not raising the objections to Nord Stream 2 like the Trump administration did(!). Are there going to be positive initiatives now? We need to replace Budapest – which we broke with our 2014 Kiev coup – with a fair and comprehensive peace and security treaty with Russia which includes
1. them keeping the Crimea since we broke Budapest
2. East Ukrainians getting an OSCE-supervised vote as to whether they want to rejoin Ukraine or join Russia.
3. Dropping the sanctions.
4. NATO agreeing not to make Ukraine and other Russian buffer states like Finland full NATO members or to hold maneuvers in them, until Russia becomes a full member of NATO (which back in 2011 before we broke the Libyan and Syrian wars out was being seriously considered. I still have my DNAK/Atlantic Council booklet Russia in NATO.)
In sum, we badly need to end our nuclear Russian Roulette confrontation and bring Russia back into the European/Western community of nations, so the 3-way superpower balance – the West, Russia, and China – can be rebalanced for international peace and stability. To avoid (the West terminally losing a) World War 3.
And maybe the Russian GRU hackers can come visit and tell/teach us how they hacked our entire U.S. national security database. 🙂
We MUST ALL now re-focus on working together – the real translation of gung ho! – saving the environment, and Joe Biden appointing John Kerry to lead that charge was excellent.
TUSEN TUSEN TAKK, General Kristoffersen, for speaking out. You can be sure you have Norway’s former (and sadly late) chief of intelligence Kjell Grandhagen’s full approval from on high.