U.S. State Department Representative Ned Price WASHINGTON Feb. 2State Department spokesman Ned Price confirmed the authenticity of US and NATO responses to Russia's security assurance proposals published in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. «I did not see anything in these documents that would suggest that they are not genuine,» Price said. On Wednesday, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said it had received a US and NATO response to Russia's security guarantee proposals. The file was published on the online page of the newspaper with the source data «Kyiv and Madrid». The materials provided said that Washington was ready to discuss the following issues with Moscow:
- — mechanism for not deploying Tomahawk cruise missiles in Romania and Poland;
- —mutual obligations to limit the deployment of offensive missile systems and forces in Ukraine;
- —alternative START-3 agreement, affecting new types of nuclear weapons, as well as control of intermediate and smaller missiles range;
- —additional measures to prevent incidents at sea and in the air.
The West also stressed that it refrains from deploying nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe. One of the authors of the material, Ibay Arbide Asa, later told RIA Novosti that he was in Ukraine. » />
InfographicUkraine issue and negotiations with the WestIn recent months, relations between Russia and the West have become even more tense. Western countries accuse Moscow of preparing an «invasion» of Ukraine, against this background they are strengthening their presence in Eastern Europe and threatening to tighten sanctions. Russia rejects all claims and recalls that Kiev does not comply with the Minsk agreements: the Armed Forces of Ukraine have concentrated half of the army’s personnel near the line of contact and are firing at militiamen from prohibited weapons. Moscow has repeatedly indicated that the goal of the “aggression” stuffing is to build up a foreign group near the borders of Russia . In addition, the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry explained that the main reason for the escalation in Ukraine is the actions of the United States and NATO, which send military instructors, weapons and equipment there, increase the number of exercises, thereby pushing Kiev to military adventures. At the end of last year, Moscow handed over Brussels and Washington draft documents on security guarantees and received a response in early February. The day before, Vladimir Putin said that Russia did not see «adequate consideration of our three key requirements» — preventing expansion to the east, refusing to deploy strike weapons systems near Russian borders, and returning NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to the state of 1997. The President recalled that now the bloc includes the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania, although after the collapse of the USSR, Moscow's Western partners promised not to expand their presence in this part of the continent. The materials published by El Pais also say that NATO continues to adhere to the open door policy, but, as Putin said earlier, it is not fixed anywhere in the documents of the alliance.