NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg MOSCOW, Jan 16NATO will not agree to withdraw the military from the countries that have joined the alliance since 1997, said the organization's secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. or not to be a member of an alliance like NATO <…>. Also, we cannot agree that we should not have NATO soldiers in all countries that have joined NATO since 1997,» Stoltenberg said in a an interview with the Canadian CBC TV channel. According to him, with such a development of events, «half» of the alliance's members will not be protected by the NATO military and will become «second-class members.» Stoltenberg stressed that the alliance is ready to discuss with Russia the reduction of weapons, in particular nuclear ones. participate in balanced, verifiable measures to reduce weapons — conventional and nuclear missiles, as well as in many other measures that will be useful for Russia and others for NATO,» the Secretary General said. Along with this, he called for a de-escalation of the situation in Ukraine, noting that the alliance is ready to «listen to the concerns» of Russia. According to Stoltenberg, NATO does not know Russia's intentions towards Ukraine, since Moscow «may change plans».Peskov did not rule out the adoption of countermeasures in the event of further expansion of NATONegotiations with NATOAt the beginning of the week, a series of consultations were held between Russia, the United States and NATO on security guarantees: on January 9-10, the issue was discussed in Geneva at meetings with the American side, on January 12 — at a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council , and on January 13 — at the OSCE site. The Kremlin insists on ending the bloc's military cooperation with the post-Soviet countries, refusing to create bases on their territory, limiting the deployment of strike weapons near the Russian border, removing American nuclear weapons from Europe and guaranteeing NATO's non-expansion to the east. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the West promised next week to give written answers to Russian proposals for a treaty with the United States and an agreement with NATO. As the minister emphasized, Moscow needs a specific answer to each article of the documents put forward — the further actions of the Russian side and the prospects for the resumption of negotiations will depend on this. January, 08:43InfographicDraft Security Assurance Agreement between Russia and NATOInfographicView
