Russia revealed on Friday two draft proposals and security guarantees that it sent to the United States and to allied countries of the OTAN this week. Moscow proposes that NATO withdraw all its troops and weapons deployed in the countries that joined the alliance after 1997, which would include Poland and Hungary, as well as a large part of Eastern Europe: Estonia, Lithuania, Croatia, along with other Balkan countries.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published on Friday the two texts that it sent to the United States and NATO allies: one is the Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on security guarantees and the second is the Agreement on Measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and NATO Member States. The Kremlin seeks to prevent the expansion of the military alliance and the establishment of US military bases in former Soviet countries.
For his part the Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Ryabkov, asked the United States for a prompt response on security guarantees. “We ask our colleagues to quickly decide and appoint their representatives who will start these talks with us,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency. “We understand that it will be an inter-ministerial format. All of our experts dealing with these issues are prepared, so we will wait to see what happens.”he added. In addition, Ryabkov assured that there is no deadline for the talks, but that Russia wants to start negotiations without delay and delay.
“We can go anywhere and anytime, even tomorrow”he said in statements quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian. The vice chancellor was asked whether he considered the requests unreasonable and said no. “It is not that we give any kind of ultimatum, there is not. It is about not underestimating the seriousness of our warning”, stated and proposed to open negotiations in Geneva from Saturday, December 18.
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the White House, Jen Psaki warned that “there will be no talks on European security without our European allies and partners.”. “We will not jeopardize the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own future and foreign policy without external interference,” he told a news conference.
The Kremlin outlined among its proposals that NATO withdraw its military bases and weapons from the countries that joined the alliance after 1997. This includes Poland and Hungary that joined in 1999 and Eastern European countries that did so in the first decade. the 2000.
Too He demanded that NATO rule out further expansion of the alliance, including an accession by Ukraine. At the same time proposed that both Russia and the parties that are NATO member states not carry out “military exercises or other military activities above brigade level in an area of width and configuration agreed on each side of the border line ”between Russia and the countries of the alliance.
He also proposed that neither party will deploy “short and intermediate range ground missiles in areas where they can reach the territory of the other party” and the reaffirmation that both Russia and the US and NATO countries “They are not considered adversaries”.
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