NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and the European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini attend a joint press conference during a NATO foreign ministers meeting at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Dec. 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

MOSCOW, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Russian government agrees with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that NATO is obsolete, the Kremlin said Monday.

"NATO is truly a relic of the past. We agree with this and we have long been expressing our views on the organization," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

"As NATO is tuned to confrontation and its entire structure is dedicated to the ideals of confrontation, of course, it can hardly be called a modern structure that meets the ideas of stability, sustainable development and security," Peskov added.

He was commenting on a recent Trump interview with The Times newspaper of Britain and Bild of Germany, in which he said NATO was "obsolete because it was not taking care of terror," and he complained that various members of the bloc were not paying their dues, which was "very unfair to the United States."

However, Trump added that NATO was very important to him.