BRUSSELS, JANUARY 12 (RIA Novosti corr. Alexander Shishlo) - In a telephone conversation Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer discussed collaborative projects within the Russia-NATO Council.
As NATO spokespeople told this RIA correspondent, about a hundred joint events are to be held along these lines in 2004, with twenty of them in Russia.
The two officials spoke today through a direct telephone line, without a translator's help. This was the first time Messrs. Ivanov and de Hoop Scheffer had used the line.