MOSCOW, January 14 - RIA Novosti. Russia stands for the issues of security guarantees with the United States and NATO to be resolved on the basis of a balance of interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We are for all this to be resolved on the basis of mutual respect, on the basis of a balance of interests. Russia's position, which was presented to the Americans and NATO, is based precisely on a balance of interests. These documents are aimed at ensuring security in Europe as a whole, in every country, including the Russian Federation," he said at a press conference following the results of the year.
"And the position of the United States and its allies is that they want to ensure their dominance in Europe. They want to create bridgeheads around the Russian Federation, military bridgeheads, they want to constantly create irritants for us, around our borders. Once again, I would like to draw your attention to where I started - read the Charter of European Security adopted in Istanbul in 1999. Everything that the West is saying and doing now is a gross violation of the obligations that were taken then," he stressed.
At the end of 2021, Russia published drafts of a treaty with the United States and an agreement with NATO on security guarantees. Moscow, in particular, demands from Western partners legal guarantees against further expansion of NATO to the east, from joining the bloc of Ukraine and from the creation of military bases in post-Soviet countries. A meeting of the Russia-NATO Council was held in Brussels on Wednesday. The meeting was held as a follow-up to the negotiations on security guarantees between Russia and the United States, which took place on January 9-10 in Geneva. Consultations on the OSCE platform on Russian proposals on security guarantees were held in Vienna on Thursday.
