MUNICH, February 17. /TASS/. NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has dodged replying to Russia’s initiative on measures to build up trust during drills at the contact line and to ensure security of flight over the Baltic Sea, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
"When several days ago in Munich I told Stoltenberg that we were waiting for an answer to our concrete proposals, he got off with some sort of clumsy remarks that they would be looked at later," Lavrov told journalists after the Munich Security Conference he had taken part in.
He said he meant the initiatives advanced by the Russian General Staff a year ago. "First, to agree to move exercises of both the Russian and NATO’s armed forces off the contact line to a certain distance. Let us sit down at the negotiating table and agree on that. Silence in response," he noted. "Our military suggested an agreement be reached to bind military planes flying over the Baltic region to use transponders, as civilian planes do. Silence again."
No reply, in his words, also came to Russia’s initiative to agree a minimal possible distance, at which Russia’s and NATO’s warships and warplanes can approach each other.
"In such conditions, naturally, we would want the thoughts repeatedly voiced by President [of France Emmanuel] Macron to finally cross the minds or NATO’s mind so that we could see how sick or healthy it really is," he added.