NATO states asked Moscow to "lower the tone of rhetoric" Friday after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of a new "arms race" between Russia and the West, a NATO spokesman said.
NATO and Russia have "all the avenues and channels to talk in a productive and friendly way and we should take advantage of those and not engage in unnecessarily heated rhetoric," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said after a meeting of the NATO-Russia council Friday in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Earlier, in a speech setting out the long-term priorities of his hand-picked successor ahead of next month's presidential polls, Putin heralded a wealthy Russia able to compete in a new "arms race".
Several NATO countries also asked "for pre-warning from the Russian federation when they intend to send military equipment like bombers near the airspace of NATO allies", Appathurai said.
Russia does "have the right to do it (fly) into international airspace but allies do want a confidence note from the Russian federation before they do that," the NATO spokesman confirmed.
Putin announced the resumption of long-range flights in international air space last summer. Such flights were standard during the Cold War but were abandoned in 1992 amid financial difficulties after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Russian Defence Minister Anatoli Serdioukov did not attend the NATO-Russia council meeting Friday, and was replaced by his deputy. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the Russian had fallen ill.
