MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need in a talk with Finnish leader Sauli Niinisto to hold negotiations with the United States and NATO on security guarantees for Moscow, noting that this move fully complied with the indivisible security principle, the Kremlin press office said after both leaders’ talks on Tuesday.
"Vladimir Putin again stressed the need for launching negotiations with the United States and NATO, without any delay, for elaborating international legal guarantees of security for our country that rule out the alliance’s further eastward expansion and the deployment of weapon systems endangering Russia on the territory of Ukraine and other neighboring states," the statement says.
As the Kremlin press office pointed out, the Russian leader "emphasized that this move fully complied with the indivisible security principle enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the 1999 Istanbul Charter."
In this context, the Russian leader expressed his support for Niinisto’s initiative to arrange a summit in 2025 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier called on NATO to start substantive talks in order to give Russia "reliable and long-term security guarantees." As the Russian leader specified, Russia needs legally binding guarantees because Western countries have failed to honor their verbal commitments.