BRUSSELS: NATO will on Thursday hold its first formal talks with Russia since the nerve agent attack on a former Kremlin double agent in Britain, as the alliance seeks to counter Moscow’s increasing assertiveness.
Tensions between the transatlantic alliance and Russia have hit post-Cold War highs in recent years over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and more recently the attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury.
NATO vehemently criticized Moscow over the attack in March, the first hostile use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War Two, and expelled seven Russian diplomats as part of a coordinated international response.
“A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council will take place on 31 May 2018,” a NATO official said.
“This is part of NATO’s twin-track approach of strong defense and meaningful dialogue with Russia.”
The meeting — the seventh of the NATO-Russia council in the last two years — will be held at the alliance’s brand-new headquarters in Brussels and is expected to cover the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, where Moscow is accused of backing pro-Russian separatists in the restive east.
Transparency around military exercises is also expected to be discussed. At the last meeting in October, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said alliance members had challenged Russia over its controversial “Zapad” drills which caused concern in Poland and the Baltic states.
The meeting comes as NATO builds up to its summit in July, which Stoltenberg on Monday said would focus on five key areas from deterrence to modernization and EU relations, with measures to “manage” ties with Russia a priority.
Last week NATO and the EU urged Moscow to take responsiblity for the 2014 downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine after international investigators concluded that a missile which destroyed the plane came from a Russian military brigade.
The NRC met regularly until the Ukraine crisis plunged relations between the West and Moscow into a deep freeze in 2014 but the meetings resumed in 2016 after months of debate within the alliance over whether it would send the wrong signal to Moscow.
US-led NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia over its role in Ukraine but has kept political channels of communication open.
NATO, Russia to hold first talks since Skripal attack
NATO, Russia to hold first talks since Skripal attack
Peru Congress impeaches interim president after four months in office
- Jose Jeri, 39, was accused in the irregular hiring of several women in his government, and of suspected graft
- Peru has now burned through seven presidents since 2016, several of them impeached, investigated or convicted of wrongdoing
LIMA: Peru’s Congress on Tuesday impeached interim president Jose Jeri, the Latin American country’s seventh head of state in 10 years and only the latest toppled over graft claims.
Jeri, 39, was accused in the irregular hiring of several women in his government, and of suspected graft involving a Chinese businessman.
In office since last October, Jeri took over from unpopular leader Dina Boluarte, who was also impeached amid protests against corruption and a wave of violence linked to organized crime.
Prosecutors last week opened an investigation into “whether the head of state exercised undue influence” in government appointments.
Jeri has protested his innocence.
Jeri — at the time the head of Peru’s unicameral parliament — was appointed last year to serve out the remainder of Boluarte’s term, which runs until July, when a new president will take over following elections on April 12.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking election.
Jeri has found himself in the spotlight over claims revealed by investigative TV program Cuarto Poder that five women were improperly given jobs in the president’s office and the environment ministry after meeting with Jeri.
Prosecutors said there were in fact nine women.
Jeri is also under investigation for alleged “illegal sponsorship of interests” following a secret meeting with a Chinese businessman with commercial ties with the government.
- Institutional crisis -
Some observers have pointed to possible politicking in the censure of Jeri just weeks before elections for which over 30 candidates — a record — have tossed their hat into the ring.
The candidate from the right-wing Popular Renewal party, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who leads in opinion polls, has been among the most vocal in calling for Jeri’s ouster.
Congress is now set to elect its own new leader on Wednesday to replace a caretaker in the post. The new parliament president will automatically take over as Peru’s interim president until July.
“It will be difficult to find a replacement with political legitimacy in the current Congress, with evidence of mediocrity and strong suspicion of widespread corruption,” political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
Peru has now burned through seven presidents since 2016, several of them impeached, investigated or convicted of wrongdoing.
The South American country is also gripped by a wave of extortion that has claimed dozens of lives, particularly of bus drivers — some shot at the wheel if their companies refuse to pay protection money.
In two years, the number of extortion cases reported in Peru jumped more than tenfold — from 2,396 to over 25,000 in 2025.
