Moscow, (UNI/Sputnik): Russia will submit its response to Washington’s letter today as part of the dialogue on security guarantees, Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.
“We are completing the analysis of the US letter. I expect that in the nearest future you will find out how the situation will unfold… We will forward this letter to the American side today,” Lavrov said at a briefing following talks with Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
In late January, the US and NATO provided Moscow with written responses to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees. At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Lavrov said that Russia’s reply to the US and NATO’s responses on security guarantees had been formulated and was about 10 pages long. According to Lavrov, the president approved the document, and it will be handed over to the US and NATO shortly.
Lavrov assured that the Russian side will unveil the document as soon it is sent to Western counterparts. “We will, certainly, make this letter public. We believe it is essential that interested members of our countries’ civil societies understand what is going on.
Otherwise, if it is kept secret, as our colleagues from Washington and Brussels prefer, public opinion will be flooded with lies and blatant propaganda that now fill the information space,” Lavrov added.
Moscow published its security suggestions for NATO and the United States in late 2021 as tensions flared up around Ukraine. Moscow specifically requested guarantees that NATO would not expand eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia. The proposals also call for the non-deployment of NATO’s strike weapons near the Russian border as well as the withdrawal of the alliance forces in Eastern Europe to the positions of 1997.
