OREANDA-NEWS. September 08, 2010. The Ninth Session of the Russian-French Security Cooperation Council took place in Paris on September 7 attended by the Foreign and Defense Ministers of the two countries.

The focus of discussion was matters relating to the creation of a new architecture of European security and stability, particularly in the context of Russia’s initiative to conclude a European Security Treaty and France’s proposal to establish a “common security space.”

There was an in-depth discussion of themes pertaining to the development of Russia-EU partner relations, and questions of the preparation for an OSCE summit in Astana this coming December. The parties exchanged their assessments of the situation surrounding the CFE Treaty. They also looked at the future of Russia-NATO collaboration and discussed missile defense problems.

In the context of bolstering the WMD nonproliferation regimes the ministers compared approaches to the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear dossier.

Among regional problems they substantively reviewed the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and progress made in the Middle East settlement process.

In view of France’s upcoming presidency of the Group of Eight and the Group of Twenty, they focused especially on the prospects of bilateral collaboration in these formats.

Sergey Lavrov also met bilaterally with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, and Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov with the head of the French defense agency, Herve Morin, to discuss matters relating to Russian-French interaction in the political, trade, economic and cultural areas and military cooperation.

Traditionally, the ministers were received by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The next Council session in order of priority will take place in Moscow.