NATO is planning to rebuff a Russian proposal for a new security agreement on the grounds that it would give Moscow veto power over allied military planning, a news report said Monday.

The draft treaty, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Dec. 4, stipulates that participants should not engage in defense planning in a way that threatens the security of other parties.

NATO sees Moscow's proposal as a ploy to regain lost influence over Eastern Europe, Bloomberg reported from Brussels, citing four unidentified alliance officials.

The three-page document, a copy of which was obtained by The Moscow Times last month, is directly aimed at NATO and distinct from President Dmitry Medvedev's broader treaty proposal for a new European security architecture.

Rasmussen rebuffed Medvedev's proposal during a visit to Moscow last month, saying there was no need for new treaties beyond the existing legal framework governing NATO-Russia relations.

The narrower draft treaty for NATO members also stipulates more detailed restrictions on the stationing of troops and military hardware in the alliance's new Eastern European member states. In the 1997 Founding Act for the NATO-Russia Council, the alliance pledged not to station any additional, substantial combat forces on a permanent basis.

A NATO official refused to comment on the report Monday because the alliance's formal response had not been made. He reiterated earlier comments from NATO's headquarters, saying both sides were debating the future of the NATO-Russia Council. "Lavrov shared some ideas on this in December," the official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that he could not immediately comment on the report.

Otfried Nassauer, director of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security, a think tank, said Lavrov's paper provided NATO with a host of reasons for rejection. Apart from the issue of military planning, the paper also stipulates consultations in the NATO-Russia Council if a member country threatens the use of force.

"NATO members do envisage crises that require a reaction without consulting with Moscow," Nassauer said.

He added that the proposal's force restrictions were similar to those of the adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which has not been ratified by NATO members.

He said Lavrov's proposal also ran counter to NATO plans to develop formal contingency plans for defending the Baltic states.

"This would most likely necessitate the introduction of higher limits on forces," he said.

The Economist reported last week on its web site that NATO had made a decision in principle to develop plans to militarily defend Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the only former Soviet republics to join NATO so far.