Sergey Lavrov’s press conference was intended to sum up the work of the Foreign Ministry over the past year, however, most of the questions, and this is not surprising, did not concern 2021, but the events of this week, that is, 2022. On January 9-10, negotiations between Russia and the United States were held, on the 12th a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council was held, and yesterday Russia's security guarantees were discussed at the OSCE site. What's next?
"To be frank, of course, everyone understands that the prospects for reaching an agreement depend on the United States. And no matter what we are told about the need to consult with the allies, these are all excuses and attempts to drag out the process,"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
As you know, Russia's key demands - the renunciation of NATO expansion to the east, the non-deployment of strike systems that threaten us near Russian borders, and the return of the military infrastructure of the North Atlantic Alliance to the borders of 1997 - all this the United States refused to discuss. Russia has been waiting for a response list of proposals from the US and NATO for a month now.
"We want to see their position on paper. Article by article, for each of our points in both documents, we want to get a reaction: this is suitable, this is not suitable, if it is not suitable, why. If you need to add something, formulate amendments,"he noted.
Washington supposedly promised to send written considerations to Moscow next week. The future of negotiations depends on what the Americans write, although the US interest in this raises questions.
"Wendy Sherman said that these were not negotiations, but the study of positions. This is very eloquent. We came to these talks with formulated positions, which were handed over to the American side in writing a month before the meeting. The United States, have not been able to study our proposals for a month. They only limited themselves to questions and verbal explanations,"Lavrov stressed.
NATO has been expanding eastward since the late 1990s, and Russia has already made attempts to stop this process.
"Their answer was revealing 'Dear friends, legally binding guarantees can only be given to members of the North Atlantic Alliance,'"Lavrov said.
NATO is pumping up Ukraine with weapons, building naval bases in the Black and Azov Seas, and regularly practicing nuclear strikes against Russia as part of strategic aviation training flights. Moreover, NATO invites the traditionally neutral Sweden and Finland to join the alliance.
"Such artificial enticement, expansion of this structure, which after the Cold War, after the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, lost its meaning of existence. Attempts to artificially prolong all this continue,"he added.
Returning to the dialogue on security guarantees. If the US written response turns out to be unacceptable and disrupts the negotiation process, Russia, as is known, is considering the option of a military-technical response to NATO's actions. Lavrov answered the ABС question with Putin's words.
"The answer can be very different, it depends on the proposals that our Russian military and experts will make to him, the President of Russia. End,"he said.
Is there any hope for a positive outcome of the security talks? Is the Minister optimistic or pessimistic? The day before, Lavrov answered these questions at the end of his interview.
“The hopes the young mind nourish,” but we are mature men here. The reality is harsh, and we have to act on it, and the reality is that we have been promised a written response. We will wait for it and then determine what to do next.
As for optimism, there is a saying that goes like this: “Who’s a pessimist? A pessimist is a well-informed optimist,”Lavrov summarizes.
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