NATO expects that the planned Russian missile-firing exercise in the Norwegian Sea in early November will not affect the alliance's Trident Juncture 2018 drills in the same area, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2018) NATO expects that the planned Russian missile-firing exercise in the Norwegian Sea in early November will not affect the alliance's Trident Juncture 2018 drills in the same area, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.The live field part of Trident Juncture 2018, NATO's largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, started in Norway and surrounding areas of the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea � including Iceland as well as Finnish and Swedish airspace � on Thursday and will last through November 7. Russia will conduct a missile-firing exercise in the Norwegian Sea in an area close to the NATO drills on November 1-3.
"I expect Russia to behave in a professional manner, and it will not change the plans for our exercise. We will, of course, monitor what Russia does, but they are operating in international waters and they have notified us in the standard manner," Stoltenberg said.
He stressed that NATO was transparent in its actions, adding that it had notified Moscow about the exercises during the NATO-Russia Council and invited Russian observers.
On October 25, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Trident Juncture 2018 was clearly anti-Russian in nature, and that the drills would deteriorate the military and political situation in the region.
