Prior to a news briefing on the eve of a meeting of alliance defense ministers, which is expected to focus on tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador stated that “we will maintain the commitments that we have on the open door.”

“And at this moment, I think massages will be pretty clear to our friends in Georgia and Ukraine that we support them, we respect their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and again, the door to enlargement is open.

We made crystal clear in the NATO-Russia council all four long hours that we are not prepared to discuss the open-door policy with Russia. We are prepared to discuss other things, we talked about arms control, transparency, risk reduction,” Julianne Smith stated.