MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. The United States and NATO don’t seem to have taken Russia’s concerns on security guarantees into account when drawing up responses to Moscow’s proposals, nor did they demonstrate any willingness to do so, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
The United States and NATO handed their written responses to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees over to Moscow on Wednesday.
"The numerous statements that our colleagues made yesterday make it clear that as for the major aspects of the draft agreements that we earlier presented to other parties, we can’t say that they took our concerns into account or showed any readiness to take our concerns into consideration," he pointed out.
Peskov noted that the US and NATO had asked Russia not to make their responses public. "However, our colleagues spelled out the contents of those papers and in fact, maybe they really should not be [published] now," the Kremlin spokesman said.
On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry released draft agreements on the security guarantees that Moscow expects to receive from Washington and NATO. The two accords - one with the US and the other with the Western-led bloc - particularly oblige NATO to cease its eastward expansion, namely to drop plans on granting Ukraine membership, and envisage restrictions on the deployment of serious offensive weapons, including nuclear ones.