BRUSSELS, May 27 (Xinhua) -- A NATO-Russia meeting at ministerial level will not be resumed in the near future, said Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin on Wednesday.

    Such a meeting has to be substantive and preparations will take considerable time, Rogozin told reporters. "We have to work out the substance of the contents."

    A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his counterparts from NATO countries had been planned for the second half of May. But Moscow angrily pulled out of the meeting after NATO expelled two Russian diplomats from its headquarters on grounds of espionage.

    The meeting would have been the first at the ministerial level after NATO's suspension of high-level political contacts with Moscow in August 2008 to protest Moscow's invasion of Georgia.

    The meeting could take place in September in New York where the foreign ministers will gather for the UN General Assembly, said Rogozin. An earlier date is not ruled out, he added.

    Rogozin said Russia was not to blame for the postponement of the ministerial meeting. Russia took this action after a series of "provocative actions" from the NATO side -- the expulsion of Russian diplomats and the military exercises in Georgia.

    Rogozin met ambassadors from NATO countries on Wednesday, the second formal meeting between them since August 2008.