"We do not think NATO has been lost to us as a partner," Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin said via a video link from Brussels, adding that Russia and NATO countries had to address common threats, and disregarding cooperation would be unwise.
Relations only recently recovering from Russia's war with Georgia last summer were hit again last week with the expulsion of two Russian NATO diplomats from Brussels. Russia responded by evicting two NATO officials from Moscow, and the foreign minister withdrew from a NATO-Russia Council session due later this month.
Moscow has also blasted the current NATO-led exercise in ex-Soviet Georgia as a show of support for the Caucasus state. President Dmitry Medvedev called the drills "an open provocation" in the light of the five-day war last August when Russia repelled Tbilisi's offensive on South Ossetia.
Rogozin said Russia had not suspended consultations with the alliance, and diplomats were continuing preparations for a Russia-NATO Council session that could be held later this month at the level of envoys. He said the date was under discussion.
The statement echoes Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remarks in Washington on Thursday that he hoped cooperation within the council would resume soon.
Rogozin said the alliance should have delayed the drill in Georgia. "If the plans are not subject to changes no matter what has happened in Georgia - a war, a typhoon, or a meteorite falling - it reveals the lack of flexibility and political thinking among those who make the decisions at NATO," he said.
NATO said earlier the May 6-June 1 Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer 2009 exercise had been planned before the Georgia war and was not aimed against Russia. It does not involve any light or heavy weaponry.
Over 1,300 troops from 19 NATO member or ally states were originally scheduled to participate, but Kazakhstan, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Serbia and Armenia have withdrawn.
