WORLD NATO chief visits Russia in effort to reassure, encourage cooperation

Russia questions NATO's motives in adding members from the former Soviet bloc.
MOSCOW (AP) -- On his first official visit to Moscow as NATO chief, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said today that his main task was to convince Russians that the western alliance is no threat.
The NATO leader said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet will be "Let's be partners," and that he wants to discuss NATO-Russian cooperation on fighting terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with Putin.
"I consider it my job, my responsibility, to convince [Russians] that NATO has no ulterior motives. NATO wants to cooperate. NATO needs Russia and Russia needs NATO," de Hoop Scheffer said in an interview on Ekho Moskvy radio.
"We live in a dangerous world and we can only solve these problems together," he said.
The NATO chief's visit comes two weeks after the Western alliance brought in seven new members from Eastern Europe, including the three former Soviet republics in the Baltics. The prospect of the alliance's eastward expansion has long made Russia nervous, and while Russian officials have toned down threatening talk of responses, they continue to question NATO's motives.
A poll of 5,413 radio listeners underlined the uphill battle de Hoop Scheffer faced in convincing Russians that NATO is their friend. Seventy-one percent of them said they considered the western alliance an aggressive bloc in relation to Russia.
Concerns over fighter planes
Russia has expressed particular uneasiness over NATO plans to have four F-16 fighter planes, stationed in Lithuania, make regular flights near Russia's border, close enough to conduct reconnaissance. The planes are part of the alliance's air defense shield.
"The new NATO nations are not intending or planning to build [new] military structures ... on their territories, which would run counter to the interests of Russia," de Hoop Scheffer said at a press conference.
As for the planes, he told Ekho Moskvy that he hoped to discuss an arrangement for Russia and NATO to handle accidental incursions of each other's airspace with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
Moscow has also voiced concern about NATO members' reluctance to ratify an amended version of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which limits the number of troops and weapons in various areas. The Baltic states and Slovenia, another new NATO member, are not signatories.
Russian pledge
NATO has linked ratification of the treaty with fulfillment of Russia's 1999 pledge to pull its troops out of former Soviet republics Georgia and Moldova.
De Hoop Scheffer said after his meeting with Ivanov that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did intend to sign onto the treaty, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.
"I hope this will occur very soon," he was quoted as saying.