The NATO bloc is ready to conduct a meaningful dialogue with Russia, the US State Department said following talks between Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary General of the military alliance Jensem Stoltenberg, RIA Novosti reports.
“Secretary of State Blinken spoke today with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg about upcoming contacts with Russia and NATO,” the State Department said, noting that the bloc “is ready for a meaningful dialogue with Russia, remaining united on the issue of containing further aggression against Ukraine.”
On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a draft treaty with the United States and an agreement with the NATO military alliance on guarantees and security. In particular, the documents imply a refusal to deploy medium and shorter-range ground-based missiles outside its territory and a refusal to expand the NATO military bloc to the east. Washington confirmed receipt of the papers.
Prior to this, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for negotiations on security guarantees with the United States and NATO. This became one of the topics of discussion during the last telephone conversation between the head of the Russian state and US President Joe Biden. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained, the heads of state needed to continue discussing the topics raised at the December 7 talks, as well as the agenda of the upcoming meetings in early January.
On January 10, Geneva will host the Russia-NATO Council, at which the Russian delegation will be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, and the US delegation by First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. As the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova emphasized, during the talks the Russian side will seek from the American colleagues “to provide firm legal guarantees of the security of the Russian Federation, namely, the non-advancement of NATO to the east and the non-deployment of weapons systems that threaten Russia at the country’s borders.”
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