NATO: Russia need not fear expansion

(AP) — The head of the panel crafting a new mission statement for NATO says Russia has no reason to fear the alliance's eastward expansion.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was tasked last year to lead the panel drafting a new mission statement, told a gathering of defense officials Sunday Russia has nothing to fear from NATO.

She says "NATO was an alliance against the Soviet Union, now the Soviet Union does not exist. NATO is a new alliance, it is not against Russia, it is an alliance that welcomes countries that want to join it."

Russia's relations with NATO have been tense for years over the alliance's eastward expansion and the ambitions of Ukraine and Georgia to join.

NATO's current mission statement was written in 1999.