WASHINGTON, January 21. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insists that the American side is interested in interaction with Russia, including on the issues concerning climate, the pandemic and technologies, yet Moscow allegedly rejected those initiatives on establishing more positive relations, according to his interview with Germany’s ZDF TV channel on Thursday made public by the press service of the US Department of State.

"We’ve shown goodwill not just in recent weeks but over many years, consistently reaching out to Russia, wanting to work with Russia, because a Russia that’s focusing its energies and resources and talents as a great nation in actually working with us to try to solve some of the problems that affect all of our citizens, whether it’s dealing with COVID or climate change, the impact of new technologies - all of these things we would like nothing better than to work with Russia," he said in response to a question as to whether he was willing to "show any kind of goodwill towards Russia" at the upcoming meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"And for many years, NATO has reached out to Russia to develop a transparent and more positive relationship. Unfortunately, we’ve been consistently rebuffed. And the fact is in recent years, it’s not NATO that is the problem. It’s a defensive alliance that operates in full transparency and it’s a voluntary alliance. It is Russia," he asserted.

In relation to this, the US top diplomat mentioned the situation in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. "So Russia has posed the real challenge to European security. We would like nothing better than to develop a more stable, predictable relationship with Russia. President Biden has said that directly to President Putin, and there are certainly areas where we can work together. But it depends on what Russia does or doesn’t do," he insisted.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that on January 21, the Russian top diplomat would meet with Blinken in Geneva. According to her, the two officials would discuss any further steps related to proposals on security guarantees submitted by Moscow.

On December 17, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published the draft agreements between Moscow and Washington on security guarantees and the measures of ensuring the security of Russia and NATO member states. Russia-US consultations on these issues were held on January 10 in Geneva, a session of the NATO-Russia Council was held on January 12 in Brussels and a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council where these initiatives were also discussed took place on January 13 in Vienna.