Stressing that the international body is always supportive and encouraging of dialogue, especially high-level one, UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, has emphasized the United Nations’ hopes that the highly tense situation around Russia and Ukraine will de-escalate following the consultations scheduled among Moscow on one side and the US, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), on the other side.
Both the Russia-US talks on January 10 in Geneva and the NATO-Russia talks on January 12 will be focused on the security guarantees demanded by Moscow in the draft agreements between Moscow and Washington the Russian Foreign Ministry published On December 17, 2021.
Those agreements also contained the measures ensuring the security of Russia and NATO member states and were submitted on December 15 to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Karen Donfried.
The Russian delegation will discuss on Jan. 12 the Russian projects on security guarantees as well as on its concerns in the security sphere in Europe.
The same subjects will also be on the agenda at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on January 13.
The US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has also emphasized that the main objective of the talks is a de-escalation of the situation and deterring Moscow from any further incursion into Ukraine through dialogue and diplomacy.
However, Norway’s UN envoy Mona Juul, whose country assumes the rotating UNSC in January, pointed that the Security Council is ready for all kinds of developments of the situation around Ukraine though now it is too early to talk about any practical steps.
Asked to comment on UNSC’s possible steps if the situation escalates, Juul said they’re ready to deal with any situation that might arise and noted they’re following very closely what is happening.
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