Doug Stanglin, and Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

Washington and Moscow jockeyed for position before an anxious international security audience Saturday: Vice President Mike Pence vowed to "hold Russia accountable," and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed NATO as a Cold War relic while musing about a "post-West" world order.

The two views were aired before foreign diplomats and security officials at the Munich Security Conference. Pence sought to calm nervous European allies concerned about Russian aggression and alarmed over President Trump's positive tilt toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in to stress the need to maintain international alliances, telling the audience, with Pence seated a few feet away, that NATO is "in the American interest."

Pence, making his first trip abroad as vice president, tried to reassure international partners who worry that Trump may pursue isolationist tendencies, telling the audience that the U.S. "strongly supports" NATO. He said the U.S. would be "unwavering" in its commitment to trans-Atlantic institutions like NATO.

"Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground which as you know President Trump believes can be found," Pence said.

He said the U.S. would demand that Russia honor a 2015 peace deal agreed upon in Minsk, Belarus, aimed at ending violence in eastern Ukraine.

Russia's forcible annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its support for rebels in eastern Ukraine prompted sharp Western condemnation and sanctions during the Obama administration. Renewed fighting between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian troops broke out last month, particularly around the rebel-held city of Donetsk.

Trump has been relatively restrained in his public statements on Ukraine, delegating more forceful responses to his secretaries of State and Defense, and particularly U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who has condemned Moscow over the recent surge of fighting, telling the U.N. Security Council that "this escalation of violence must stop."

For his part, Lavrov, speaking hours after the vice president, said Russia wants pragmatic relations with Washington but also is hoping for the creation of a “post-West world order.”

“What kind of relations do we want with the U.S.? Pragmatic relations, mutual respect, understanding our special responsibility for global stability,” the Russian foreign minister said, speaking through an interpreter.

While declaring that NATO "remained a Cold War institution," he said that "responsible leaders" should make a choice in favor of a democratic and just world order.

“If you want, you can call it a post-West world order when each country, based on its sovereignty within the rules of international law, will strive to find a balance between its own national interests and the national interests of partners,” he said.

Lavrov said there was "immense potential" that could be tapped into toward that end. "We're open for that inasmuch as the U.S. is open for that as well," he told the audience.

In his remarks, Pence seemed to focus on shoring up and extending U.S.-European relations rather than dialing up a new world order.

"We have been faithful for generations — and as you keep faith with us, under President Trump we will always keep faith with you. The fates of the United States and Europe are intertwined. Your struggles are our struggles. Your success is our success. And ultimately, we walk into the future together," Pence said.

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But he also reminded European leaders that Trump's administration wants NATO members to spend more on defense.

NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a 28-nation military alliance of European and North American democracies created after World War II to strengthen international cooperation as a counter-balance to the rise of the Soviet Union. In 2014, all NATO members promised to spend 2% of their gross domestic spending on defense within a decade. So far only the U.S. and four other members have done so. The others were Greece, Britain, Poland and Estonia.

Pence said the "time has come" for all members to make good on their promise.

His foreign trip includes a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Sunday and Monday. While there, he will also meet with senior figures from the European Union.

Merkel used her speech to the conference to appeal to the U.S. and others to bolster commitment to multilateral organizations such as the EU.

"Will we be able to continue working well together, or will we all fall back into our individual roles?" Merkel asked. "I hope we will find a common position on this, let’s make the world better together and then things will get better for all of us."

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