GENEVA, January 10./TASS/. At talks with the US in Geneva, Russia tried to explain why playing with fire on the part of Washington was no longer acceptable, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said after Russian-US consultations on security guarantees on Monday.
"We came to Geneva to avoid entering into an impasse. We spent a lot of effort trying to explain to our American counterparts why playing with fire is not in their interests, why the potential disregard for our absolutely justified presentation of the problem that things cannot any longer go the way they were in the past decades, cannot continue in relations with NATO," Ryabkov said. "We need drastic changes in the narrative or our relations, its matrix, its framework," he added.
He stressed that Russia had repeatedly brought these considerations to the notice of the US side at all levels - at the level of the two countries’ leaders, as well as at the diplomatic and military level. On Monday, the Russian military delegation in Geneva, led by Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, discussed in depth "respective elements of the position".
Russia’s dialogue with the United States and NATO on security guarantees should not be either postponed or dragged out for months and years, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.
"There are various levels of predictability in such formats and we need to evaluate them to see if there is a perspective for a next step, which can be taken as soon as possible," Ryabkov told.
"Anyway, this process cannot be dragged out transforming into a process consuming months and years," the Russian diplomat added.
The Russian-US consultations on security guarantees ended in Geneva on Monday. On December 17, 20121, the Russian Foreign Ministry made public the draft agreements between Russia and the US on security guarantees and the measures of ensuring the security of Russia and NATO member states.