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Lavrov vows Moscow to ensure security offers are 'understood' and 'taken seriously'

The Russian foreign minister added that "the timeframe of the security negotiations cannot be delayed"

MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russia will do its utmost to ensure that the West clearly understands Moscow’s proposals on security guarantees and that they are taken seriously, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the RT television channel on international issues on Wednesday.

"We will do everything to ensure that we are understood and I hope that we will be taken seriously in light of the actions we are undertaking to ensure our defense capabilities," Russia’s top diplomat said.

Despite progress in the dialogue on organizing the negotiations on security issues, large-scale work on the substance of the agreements has to be carried out, Lavrov insisted.

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Russia and US agree on security dialogue mechanisms, says foreign minister

"The Americans said that they were open to discussing an entire range of concerns contained in the documents, though a number of other issues were unacceptable and, thirdly, they themselves had their own concerns. We are ready to examine them but they have not yet outlined them to us. So, given the understanding on the organizational side, a great deal of work on the content still has to be done," the Russian foreign minister pointed out.

The timeframe of the security negotiations cannot be delayed, considering the escalating tension around Russia over the past decades, Lavrov noted.

"Tensions have been continually stirred up around us over the past few decades, with NATO’s military infrastructure getting closer to our borders, not to mention the fact that we have been regularly deceived. We insist on solely legally binding guarantees," Russia’s top diplomat stressed.

On December 17, Russia’s Foreign Ministry published drafts of an agreement with the United States on security guarantees and an agreement between Russia and the NATO member states on security measures. The drafts were handed over to the US side at a meeting in the Russian Foreign Ministry on December 15.

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Foreign policy Sergey Lavrov United States

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