Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken shake hands during their meeting in GenevaGENEVA 21 JanRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken useful and frank. Lavrov and Blinken met in Geneva on Friday. This was the third meeting of the heads of foreign affairs agencies. The first took place in May in Reykjavik «on the sidelines» of the Arctic Council ministerial meeting, the second — in Stockholm in December «on the sidelines» of the OSCE ministerial meeting. «I said everything we talked about today, what we discussed today, and on which we concluded our useful frank conversation,» he said after the meeting with Blinken. Lavrov added that it will be possible to judge whether the negotiations are progressing correctly or not after Russia receives a reaction on security guarantees from the United States on paper. «I cannot to say that we are on the right track, not on the right track. We will understand this when we get the American reaction on paper, to all the points of our proposals,» the Russian Foreign Minister noted.
Lavrov called on Blinken to publicly voice the US response to Russia's proposalsLavrov said earlier that Blinken, at a meeting with him in Geneva, promised next week to provide a written response to Moscow's proposals on security guarantees. dangers. 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 eastward expansion of NATO, joining the Ukrainian bloc, and establishing military bases in post-Soviet countries. On January 10, Russia and the United States held a round of dialogue on strategic stability in Geneva. It was followed by a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels and consultations at the Vienna site of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The main focus of the discussions was the proposals of the Russian side.
