BRUSSELS — Russia Friday delayed signing a deal with NATO letting the Atlantic alliance open an information office in Moscow due to harsh words about Moscow's handling of the Chechen conflict, U.S. officials said.
But NATO Secretary-General George Robertson accepted a public invitation at a news conference from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to visit Moscow, suggesting the office could be opened on that occasion, one official said.
The two men were speaking after the latest meeting of the NATO-Russia Joint Permanent Council at the headquarters of the 19-member Western alliance, whose relations with Russia were severely strained by its bombing of Yugoslavia last year.
Earlier, NATO foreign ministers issued a communique deploring the loss of civilian life in Chechnya.
"It was hard for Foreign Minister Ivanov to agree to raise the NATO flag in Moscow on the same day that NATO was issuing a communique that was critical of Russia over Chechnya," one U.S. official said.
"That's regrettable but it is understandable, and we hope that we won't have to wait long," the official said, adding that everything but the date had been agreed in principle.
The communique said the two sides had exchanged letters on establishing the office but added a "just and durable solution" to the conflict was "urgent and essential."
Also, the concerns that induced Turkey to resist a deal between NATO and the European Union on sharing military assets are real, but they can be overcome and will not stop the EU's security project, France said Friday.
"The Turkish problem is real. I can understand it. It doesn't stop us from going forward," Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told reporters.
"It's not a tactic. There's serious concern behind it. But we can't subordinate the whole European project to this Turkish problem," he said.
It would be "unjust" to charge Turkey with a cynical bid to use its veto power in NATO to force its way closer to its goal of membership in the EU, he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem joined what Vedrine called a "convivial" dinner of 23 EU and NATO member countries in Brussels at the end of a gruelling NATO foreign ministerial meeting.