Chief of Staff Lieut Gen David Stapleton and two senior Army officers have been invited to Moscow by the Russian Deputy Minister for Defence and Chief of Staff of the Russian Army, Gen Anatoly Kvashnin.
This followed a two-hour informal meeting at Shannon airport yesterday when the Aeroflot jet on which the Russian military party were flying from Havana to Moscow made a refuelling stop. They had earlier been in Japan and the United States.
The Russian military leader, accompanied by a three-star general, said they were very impressed by the Irish expertise in peace-keeping in different parts of the world over the past 40 years. A visit to Moscow, he said through an interpreter from the Russian embassy in Dublin, would enable both sides to see what they had in common and get to know each other better.
Gen Kvashnin was particularly impressed when told by Gen Stapleton and deputy Chief of Staff Maj Gen Colm Mangan that military officers from other nations had been attending the Irish peace-keeping school at the Curragh.
Gen Kvashnin emphasised that Russia was a very big part of Europe and that open communications were now fully accepted. While acknowledging that it had some serious financial and economic problems, he emphasised that it occupied one seventh of the surface of the Earth.
Gen Stapleton, who was accompanied by Brig Gen Taylor, GOC of the Southern Command, said that they also discussed general matters of mutual interest such as drug trafficking and overall Western security as well as the present situation in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Russian military attache in London flew in for the meeting. It was stated that the Russian ambassador to Ireland was on a visit to Moscow.