As NATO leaders trade barbs ahead of a tense summit in London, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that Russia is watching developments at the alliance's birthday meeting ``with great attention.''
The 29-country trans-Atlantic military alliance was founded in 1949 to provide collective security for Europe against what was then the Soviet Union.
Peskov said Tuesday that NATO is ``a product of the era of confrontation, the Cold War era,'' something he says that Russia does not want to return to.
But he says that ``an alliance that was created and shaped by the confrontation ideology, of course, can't bring anything else'' but confrontation.
Turkey's increasingly close relations with Moscow _ and its purchase of Russian air defense systems that are incompatible with NATO equipment _ has added to tensions among the allies.
But Peskov says those ties are not hurting NATO.
France, meanwhile, also wants closer ties with Russia.
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