BRUSSELS, December 17. /TASS/. The North Atlantic Council confirmed it had received Russia’s proposals on European security and said it was ready to engage in confidence-building dialogue if Moscow takes measures to reduce tensions, the NATO Council said in a statement.
"We are aware of Russia’s recent European security proposals. We are clear that any dialogue with Russia would have to proceed on the basis of reciprocity, address NATO’s concerns about Russia’s actions, be based on the core principles and foundational documents of European security, and take place in consultation with NATO’s European Partners. Should Russia take concrete steps to reduce tensions, we are prepared to work on strengthening confidence-building measures," the statement says.
The document reiterated NATO’s "long-standing invitation to Russia for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in the near future." This format was de-facto destroyed by NATO in October, when the alliance made the remaining group of Russian diplomats leave Brussels. Russia was forced to close the diplomatic mission and suspend operations of the NATO mission in Moscow.
In the statement, the alliance also reiterated its concerns about the situation in Ukraine and the alleged Russian troop buildup near its borders.
"We are gravely concerned by the substantial, unprovoked, and unjustified Russian military build-up on the borders of Ukraine in recent months, and reject the false Russian claims of Ukrainian and NATO provocations. We call on Russia to immediately de-escalate, pursue diplomatic channels, and abide by its international commitments on transparency of military activities," the document says.
"Any further aggression against Ukraine would have massive consequences and would carry a high price. NATO will continue to closely coordinate with relevant stakeholders and other international organisations including the EU," it says.
The nature of those "massive consequences" was not disclosed, just like in earlier similar statements.
Russian initiative
Putin earlier called upon NATO to enter into meaningful negotiations with the aim of giving Russia "reliable and long-term security guarantees." Moscow will be insisting in its dialogue with Washington and its allies "on producing concrete agreements" that would rule out NATO’s further eastward expansion or the deployment near Russian territory of weapon systems threatening its security, Putin said. He stressed Russia needed "legal, juridical guarantees, because the Western counterparts have defaulted on their previous verbal pledges."
Putin and Biden on December 7 held two hours of negotiations on a video call. The presidents agreed to task their teams with preparations to start consultations on sensitive issues.
US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried visited Kiev, Moscow and Brussels earlier this week. The Russian side submitted to Donfried a package of proposals on security guarantees, which Moscow seeks from US and NATO.