Congress of NATO member countries’ foreign ministers

06.12.2016
Belgium

The NATO ministerial summit involving the foreign ministers of NATO member countries is beginning.

Linguistics and Politics

According to official information, the main topics are going to be problems in relations between NATO and Europe, the Ukrainian crisis, and the work of the mission in Afghanistan.

However, all of these issues are in some way related to Russia. The materials are available in English provided in the public domain, as well as in French, Russian, and Dari languages ​​(for the Afghan audience). Despite the fact that Russian is one of the six UN languages, the press service of the alliance has increasingly prepared materials in the artificially constructed Ukrainian language, but this time it was decided to move away from such unspoken rules. This in particular speaks to what exactly the subject of the summit and the center of its attention is.

The Mission in Afghanistan

On the one hand, NATO's mission in Afghanistan is suffering failure as of late. On the other hand, this mission is still strategically important since around it have gathered all of the “supporters” of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who are not included in the organization or all meetings, i.e., representatives of the power circles of Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, and Bulgaria. Their attention to this topic has in some ways become a kind of center for the unification of anti-Russian forces.

The "Istanbul process"

It must also be remembered that the "Istanbul Process” summit involving Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, including Russia, recently concluded. The Afghan President, Ghani Afrashom, who led the participants, assigned responsibilities. Moscow, for instance, will now be responsible for solving one of the most pressing problems in the region: the production and distribution of narcotics. The problem of drug-related crimes in Afghanistan is closely intertwined with NATO’s vital interests.

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