The North Atlantic Alliance announced its readiness for a dialogue with Moscow to build confidence. This is stated in the statement of the NATO Council.
“We are aware of recent Russian proposals for European security. We declare that any dialogue with Russia should be conducted on the basis of reciprocity, respond to NATO’s concerns about Russian actions […] If Russia takes concrete measures to reduce tensions, we are ready to work on confidence-building measures”, the TASS document is quoted as saying.
Also in the statement of the North Atlantic Alliance it is noted that Russia has once again proposed to hold a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in the near future. Let us recall that this format of negotiations was practically destroyed after the Alliance expelled the last group of Russian diplomats from Brussels in October.
In the document, the North Atlantic Alliance also expressed concern about the “significant concentration” of Russian troops near the borders of Ukraine. NATO said that in the event of “aggression” Moscow will face large-scale consequences.
“We are deeply concerned about the significant, unprovoked and unjustified concentration of Russian forces near the borders of Ukraine. We call on Russia to immediately de-escalate, use diplomatic channels and fulfill its international obligations on military transparency. Any further aggression against Ukraine will have large-scale consequences and will force [Russia] to pay a high price”, the North Atlantic Alliance said.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on NATO to start substantive negotiations with the aim of providing Moscow with “reliable and long-term security guarantees.” The Russian side intends to insist on the exclusion of further NATO advancement and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten Russia in the immediate vicinity of its territory.