GENEVA, January 9. /TASS/. It would be na·ve to expect progress on the issues of security guarantees at the upcoming talks between Russia and the US and NATO given the western partners’ public position before the meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who has arrived for the Russian-US talks on security guarantees, said in an interview with TASS on Sunday.
"There is a subject for conversation here from the viewpoint of explaining the logic of approaches and, probably, specifying what the colleagues in Washington and in NATO overall are driven by. But it would be na·ve to expect progress, given the revised public presentation of the position that we see today, right before the start of contacts," he said.
Before the talks the position of the American side leaves little reason for optimism, Ryabkov noted. "I would first of all hear during the upcoming contacts something clearer on NATO’s non-expansion, on recall of the decision of the Bucharest summit of 2008, on unacceptability for the US and NATO nations to continue the geopolitical exploration, in fact, of the whole space controlled by this group of states to the west, north-west, south-west of our borders. This is crucial for us, not the aspects the American side is focused on now," he added.
The beginning of the first round of Russia-US talks on security issues in Geneva is scheduled for the evening of January 9, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier, adding that it would be held in a narrow format. The work will continue in an extended format on January 10. The meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels will take place on January 12, while the talks of representatives of Russia and the OSCE in Vienna - on January 13.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made public drafts of a Russian-US treaty on security guarantees and an agreement on measures to ensure the security of Russia and NATO member-states on December 17.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on NATO to begin substantive talks on reliable long-term security guarantees to Russia. He stressed that Moscow needs legally binding guarantees because the West has failed to fulfill its verbal commitments.