GENEVA, January 9. /TASS/. Moscow assumes that the west should unilaterally give up the expansion of NATO and liquidate the military infrastructure that has been created, 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.

"Other priorities are more important for us: NATO’ non-expansion, the liquidation of infrastructure that has been created, the west’s unilateral withdrawal from the actions," he said.

"I can say that <...> the requirements of the US and other NATO countries on our implementation of certain de-escalation measures on our territory are out of discussion. This is non-starter in the literal sense of the word. If the Americans want to discuss our changing the approach to the Minsk set of measures, for example, or even mention something like that on the Crimean issue, it has no chances to be discussed either," he emphasized.

The difference of views of the sides on those issues is "dramatic, fundamental, with the positions being divergent," the diplomat noted.

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.