Russia Hopes To Receive Reply On Security Proposals At Lavrov-Blinken Meeting - Diplomat

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) Russia expects the United States to deliver its response to Moscow's proposals on security guarantees at the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva, Russian Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said on Thursday.

The Lavrov-Blinken meeting in Geneva is scheduled for Friday.

"I would hope that Secretary Blinken comes to Geneva not empty-handed, but with a reply, which was promised to the Russian proposals on security guarantees, the ones that were presented to the United States and to NATO countries," Chizhov told CNBC.

Russia is ready to spend more time negotiating with Washington if needed and expects "a written reply" on the matter, the diplomat said.

Speaking to Russian state broadcaster Rossiya 24, Chizhov stressed that the European Union refused to participate in negotiations on security guarantees on its own, relying on the United States and NATO in this matter.

"The EU has effectively isolated itself from this by blocking the development of dialogues with Russia on many issues, including security issues," he said, adding that it comes as a surprise that Moscow is blamed for "removing the European Union from participating in discussions on Eurosecurity."

When asked about a potential resumption of the Russia-EU Council, Chizhov said that Moscow is ready to restore the platform.

"Please, at any moment, we are ready. In our case with the European Union, we did not only have a Russia-EU Council, we had a whole structure, we had summits twice a year," he said, recalling that the last summit was held on January 28, 2014, in Brussels.

The diplomat also stated that the NATO-Russia Council meeting, held on January 12 at NATO headquarters in Brussels for the first time since 2019, did not amount to a full-scale resumption of this format.

Proposals for security guarantees, sent by Russia to the US and NATO in late 2021, were the main subject of the NATO-Russia Council meeting, the Russia-US strategic stability dialogue on January 10 in Geneva, and talks of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on January 13 in Vienna.