MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. Talks on security guarantees, which were supposed to address the concerns of Russia and other parties, did not go beyond "exchanging pieces of paper and reading from talking points", US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan said in an interview with TASS.
"There were discussions between the US and Russia, between NATO and Russia, and at the OSCE. <…> [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken said at the time: ‘Go the extra mile, see if we can reach an understanding on addressing both Russia’s legitimate security concerns and the security concerns of the US and NATO allies and European partners’. And those talks never really progressed beyond simply exchanging pieces of paper and reading from talking points," the diplomat said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on NATO in December 2021 to enter into meaningful negotiations with the aim of establishing reliable and long-term guarantees of Russia’s security. He stressed that Moscow needed legal guarantees, because the Western counterparts had defaulted on the corresponding verbal commitments. Russia, the US and NATO have held several rounds of consultations in various formats, but no agreement has been reached. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that during the talks on security guarantees, NATO member countries demonstrated complete unwillingness to take Moscow's legitimate interests into account.