MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. The United States and other NATO countries are yet unwilling to perceive Russia’s key security demands adequately, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Friday.
The Russian leader said that at the request of his Belarusian counterpart, he briefed him on the latest contacts with the leaders of Western states on long-term and legally binding security guarantees for Russia from the United States and NATO. Putin said that he considered "it quite natural that the Belarusian allies are also concerned over this issue."
"We discussed the situation developing with regard to Russia’s demands to the West whose key points stipulate that NATO should abandon its designs on eastward expansion, assume the commitment of not deploying strike weapons near the Russian borders and return to the alliance’s military potential and infrastructure in Europe as of 1997 when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed. As I have already spoken about, the United States and other members of the alliance are yet unwilling, unfortunately, to perceive these three core elements of our initiative adequately," the Russian president said.
At the same time, the Western counterparts formulated a whole number of ideas on European security, intermediate- and shorter-range missiles and military transparency as the issues that Russia also favors discussing, Putin pointed out.
"And we are ready to move along the negotiating track on condition that all the issues will be discussed comprehensively, without being separated from the key Russian proposals whose implementation is a top priority for us," the Russian leader stressed.