MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. A Russian lawmaker has called on the European Union to look at a possibility of talks with Russia to reach agreements stopping NATO’s eastward expansion.
"It is absolutely unclear why the European leaders continue to whip up tensions, despite the recent talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin [of Russia] and Joe Biden [of the United States] and their results. It means that they are either interested in ‘getting prepared for the worse,’ as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is saying, or it is a pretext to justify further economic sanctions against our country to punish it for conducting an independent foreign policy and rejecting so-called ‘European values,’" Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the defense committee of the Russian State Duma, or lower parliament house, said on Tuesday.
Earlier, Borrell told a news conference after a European Council meeting that the EU summit on December 16 would look at possible steps the European Union would take in coordination with the United States in case of "Russia’s aggression against Ukraine."
"I would like to recall [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s words about the necessity of urgent talks to elaborate international agreements excluding NATO’s further expansion eastwards and the deployment of weapons threatening Russia in neighboring countries, first of all in Ukraine. Our European partners should think about it," Kartapolov stressed.