| NATO said it hoped to find much in common with Russia on Thursday over the Ukrainian election crisis and that a spat over the issue was not comparable to East-West confrontations of Soviet times. "While many in the media have attempted to portray these events as a return to Cold War-era confrontation between East and West, I am confident that we can prove them wrong and find significant common ground here today," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said. "A sovereign peaceful, unified and stable Ukraine is vitally important to every nation represented around this table," he said at the start of a meeting between foreign ministers from the alliance and Russia. "Similarly, the democratic aspirations of the Ukraine people to choose their own leaders, free from fraud and intimidation, should also meet with our common support." There have been growing tensions over Ukraine, with Moscow warning Western nations not to interfere there or in other former Soviet republics. |