WASHINGTON, Jan 16 NATO invited Russia to hold a series of meetings on European security, including the situation around Ukraine, but has not yet received a response, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. Negotiations between the Russian delegation and representatives of all 30 NATO member countries were held last Wednesday in Brussels, once again denoting differences in the positions of the parties and ending without agreements to continue the dialogue. 
Peskov did not rule out taking countermeasures in the event of further NATO expansion. «We have put on the table a proposal to hold a series of meetings on topics important for European security, the situation in and around Ukraine,» Stoltenberg said in an interview with the Canadian CBC television channel. commit themselves to take part in further negotiations, but did not reject the proposals,» he added. The meeting on Wednesday was held in the format of a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council. Stoltenberg's interview, judging by a number of his statements, was recorded on Thursday and aired on Sunday. The topics of new meetings with Russia, he said, could be arms control, transparency of military activities, and confidence-building measures. «Russia said that they needed some time to respond to these proposals, and now we are waiting for the Russian response,» Stoltenberg said. He ruled out the possibility of compromises on the issues important for Russia of NATO's refusal to further expand and withdraw troops from the territory of former socialist countries and the post-Soviet republics that joined the alliance after 1997.» Of course, we cannot agree that we should not have NATO troops in all countries that have joined NATO since 1997. The point is that half of our members would be left without the protection of NATO troops. It would be a kind of second-class NATO membership,» Stoltenberg said. Ukraine, Peskov said
