U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned PriceWASHINGTON, Jan 31 Sergei Lavrov, in a February 1 phone call with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, will convey Moscow's response to Washington's responses on security assurances, State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a briefing Monday. «There is only one person on the Russian side who makes decisions about «What Moscow will and won't do. His response is of the utmost importance to us. And we are waiting to see what exactly the Foreign Minister (Sergey Lavrov) will tell us in terms of the official response to our written proposals,» Price said. .At the end of 2021, Russia published drafts of a treaty with the United States and an agreement with NATO on security assurances. Moscow, in particular, demands from its Western partners legal guarantees of refusing further eastward expansion of NATO, joining the Ukrainian bloc, and establishing military bases in post-Soviet countries. The proposals also contain a clause on the non-deployment of NATO strike weapons near the borders of Russia and the withdrawal of alliance forces in Eastern Europe to the positions of 1997. Last Wednesday, the US and NATO submitted to Moscow written responses to Russia's proposals for security guarantees. The Russian Foreign Minister said that Moscow is studying the responses of the United States and NATO.
