MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Russia has given serious thought to a number of proposals that Washington made in response to those put forward by Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.

"We have given serious thought to the comments on specific measures related to transparency, confidence building, and risk reduction that the US document contains. By the way, the share of insolent and flaunting wordings in NATO’s [response] is far higher than in the US one, though the US response also does not lack elements of unacceptable formulations," he pointed out.

According to the US response to Russia’s proposals, published by Spain’s El Pais newspaper, Washington is ready to discuss the possibility of inspections of missile defense facilities in Romania and Poland in return for inspections of Russian facilities. When asked if Moscow was willing to accept the proposal, Ryabkov said: "We aren’t going to delve into specific proposals at the moment because the main thing for us is to figure out if the other side is ready to continue a serious conversation on ending NATO’s expansion and bringing infrastructure facilities back to the situation that had existed in 1997, when the Founding Act was signed. This is what all other things depend upon."

"If it happens so that such a conversation gets underway instead of focusing on pointless lecturing and attempts to impose the West’s approach to security issues, which has completely discredited itself, as well as to tarnish our only possible interpretation of the principle of indivisible security if we succeed in moving towards more substantive and result-oriented discussions and a future solution to these major tasks, then the situation around the US proposal on inspections will look different," the senior Russian diplomat stressed. For now, according to him, such a proposal from Washington "is nothing more than a signal indicating the seriousness of how the issue brought up by Russia is seen and the seriousness of Russia’s proposals on draft agreements." "However, there is no reason to address specific US proposals as long as there is no understanding about the possibility of ending NATO’s expansion," Ryabkov concluded.