Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. File photoMOSCOW, Jan 20Moscow hopes that the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will bring progress in negotiations on security guarantees, Moscow is optimistic, said the head of the Russian delegation at the talks in Vienna on military security and arms control Konstantin Gavrilov. The meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be a good opportunity to discuss Russia's past consultations with the US and NATO, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said. The meeting is scheduled for Friday in Geneva.
"I think that the meeting between Minister Lavrov and Secretary of State Blinken will help to make progress in these discussions (on security guarantees) … Of course, we are ready (for discussions) and are optimistic, we are ready for an unforeseen development of the situation, but we hope for the best", Gavrilov said in an interview with RT.
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 its Western partners legal guarantees of refusing further expansion of NATO to the east, from joining the bloc of Ukraine and from creating military bases in post-Soviet countries. On January 10, Russia and the United States held a new round of dialogue on strategic stability in Geneva. It was followed by a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels. It was followed on Thursday, January 13, by consultations at the Vienna site of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The main focus of these discussions was the security proposals that the Russian side presented to the US and NATO at the end of last year against the background of the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine. img src=»/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/7ac7837abe5cbbfa32faf6a08c9c9f75.jpg» />Infographic