Washington. January 22. INTERFAX - American officials have asked Russian colleagues not to publicly distribute written responses to Russian initiatives on security guarantees that are currently being prepared in the United States, The Washington Post reported.
As a representative of the US State Department told the publication on condition of anonymity, "the Biden administration's written response will include proposals on American security and demonstrate Washington's interest in continuing the dialogue."
The newspaper's report, citing a source, says that the response will still not meet Russia's requirements to cancel the open door policy for joining NATO.
At the same time, the newspaper notes, "the Biden administration believes that it still makes sense to provide a letter that can be read directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin."
"It is in our interests if the highest decision-maker in Russia considers these ideas and decides whether to move forward," the publication quotes one of the sources as saying.
He added: "We don't want to be the ones who rule out a potential diplomatic solution."
Nevertheless, commenting on Washington's request to keep the document with written answers secret, an unnamed representative of the State Department admitted that "the Kremlin may decide to publish it after the United States sends it next week."
The Washington Post recalls that after a meeting the day before in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the parties would hold further talks after the United States submitted a written response to proposals put forward by Russia to limit the expansion and activities of the NATO alliance in Eastern Europe.
"The United States immediately rejected many of Russia's demands, but the agreement to continue diplomacy, at least for the moment, turned out to be the only point of contact in the 90-minute meeting," The Washington Post summarizes.
As Lavrov told his American counterpart before the start of the talks, "we also do not expect breakthroughs from this meeting, we are waiting for answers to our proposals."
He stressed that "the proposals are concrete, and we expect the same concrete answers in line with and in full compliance with the commitments that were made at the highest level within the OSCE on the problems of indivisibility of security, so that no country strengthens its security at the expense of the security of any other country."
At a press conference following the meeting, the minister said: "We have already heard the first reaction of the United States, so far verbally, to what was discussed in those formats at the level of our deputies. The reaction, as the American side asked us when it proposed to hold this meeting, was preliminary," he said.
