Moscow does not take the statements of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg seriously, he is a “downed pilot,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.
“These statements made by Stoltenberg, who is either NATO Secretary General or a banker, I haven’t figured it out yet, are no longer of interest to us. This is not the person whose statements will be considered in Moscow as serious arguments. This is a downed NATO pilot,” she said.
At the same time, Moscow is counting on a constructive dialogue with Washington and NATO on security guarantees, Zakharova added. At the end of last year, Russia demanded that its Western partners refrain from expanding the North Atlantic Alliance to the east (Ukraine and Georgia should not join the military bloc) and from deploying strike weapons systems near Russian borders, as well as returning to NATO’s military infrastructure in Europe along as of 1997
Stoltenberg became NATO Secretary General in 2014. He replaced Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who previously headed the alliance. Stoltenberg’s current term ends this year on September 30.
On February 4, it became known that the current NATO Secretary General will become the new head of the Norwegian Central Bank for six years. He is expected to take office in early December.
Stoltenberg, 62, was leader of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Norway from 2002 to 2014 and served twice as prime minister (2000-2001 and 2005-2013). In the 1990s, he headed the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Energy, as well as the Ministry of Finance.