MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Since the start of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine, NATO has been stepping up its presence on the Russian border in Eastern Europe. As a NATO member, Germany has been politically supportive of the buildup and contributed to it.
"At the same time we need to complement reassurance with a reinvigoration of our dialogue with Russia," Steinmeier said in an article published in the Security Times, a special edition covering the Munich Security Conference underway in Bavaria.
Steinmeir said that the dialogue should "identify areas of common interest," while at the same time "clearly spell out where we have sharp differences."
At the recent meeting of 28 NATO defense ministers in Brussels the bloc agreed to enhance air policing along the eastern frontier, intensify maritime patrols in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea near Russia’s Crimea, and conduct military drills with allies and partners.
