Stressing the difficulty the situation surrounding Russia-US relations is in, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has urged Washington to immediately respond to the proposals for security guarantees the Russian diplomats announced on December 15.
Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry published two draft agreements on security guarantees between the Russian Federation, the US, and NATO. Those proposals were published in detail on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Friday.
The “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees”, would legally bind both Washington and Moscow to commit not to deploy forces as well as weapons in areas where they may pose a threat to the national security of the other.
It also stipulates that both sides will limit the deployment of intermediate and short-range missiles, will not send ships or aircraft within striking distance of the other party, and return the already deployed nuclear weapons to their country of origin.
Moscow also demands NATO to stop its expansion towards Russia’s borders and not to invite post-Soviet countries into the alliance, or create military bases on their territory.
Ryabkov does not expect the United States to refuse Russian proposals as such but believes there will be attempts by Washington to add all sorts of wishes, conditions, or additional ideas just to throw the ball over to Moscow side.
Fully aware that Washington might (and will probably) try to slow down the negotiation process, he stressed that Moscow needs a prompt answer because the situation continues to deteriorate.
According to Konstantin Gavrilov, a Russian diplomat in Vienna, the conversation needs to be serious since the relations between Moscow and the NATO military alliance had reached a “moment of truth” and even NATO understands perfectly well that concrete political action needs to be taken since the alternative is Russia giving a military-technical and military response.
Some of Russia’s proposals, according to Washington, are obviously unacceptable and will not be discussed, but Biden administration has said that that the US will respond sometime this week with more concrete proposals.
According to the White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Washington will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including the right of all countries to decide their own future and foreign policy without interference from outside.
NATO diplomats, on the other hand, noted that the alliance has the right to decide its own military posture and that Moscow cannot have a veto on further expansion of NATO.
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