Moscow has urged NATO to establish official links with the six-nation Collective Security Treaty, a military pact that includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Russia and China also dominate another regional security alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes four former Soviet Central Asian nations.
Simmons also said that there are good prospects for a breakthrough next year in a conflict pitting Armenia against Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.
(AP)