Russia offers three urgent meetings – VG

Next week, NATO countries and the United States will send specific, written answers to Russia’s demands for a new security system in Europe. NATO has already proposed three meetings with Russia in the coming weeks, with concrete proposals for the agenda.

This will be confirmed by VG on Thursday.

On Tuesday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said he did He invited Russia to a series of meetings to continue talks after he received Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko in Brussels on January 12.

After talks with central security sources, VG can now tell us the contents of NATO’s short-term plan, to continue talks with Russia.

At a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, Stoltenberg said the main task now is to prevent a military attack on Ukraine.

You want urgent meetings

In Brussels, it is hoped that a new meeting of the NATO-Russia Council will take place at the end of next week, and possibly as early as the following week.

According to VG information, the concrete proposal that Stoltenberg has now sent to Moscow is three consecutive meetings in the coming weeks:

** first meet At the invitation of NATO, the status of cooperation between NATO and Russia was settled. In Berlin on Tuesday, Stoltenberg said he encouraged Russia to reverse its October decision last year, About breaking the defense alliance’s diplomatic channels.

NATO wants clarification from Russia on how practical cooperation will take place in the future, VG was informed. At the moment, NATO represents Russia with Russia’s ambassador to Belgium.

**Second meeting It is an invitation to talk in detail about the current security situation in Europe, in light of Russia’s demands to withdraw NATO forces from countries bordering Russia, and guarantees that Ukraine will not be able to become a future member of NATO.

In this meeting, NATO also wants to discuss other relevant security issues such as the situation in Syria, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Upper North region, and the Baltic Sea.

** Third meeting It will shed light, according to the NATO proposal, on possible solutions and pave the way for negotiations on new agreements between Russia and NATO. This applies to topics such as arms control, mutual restrictions on nuclear weapons, and increased openness about military activities on both sides.

Foreign Ministers Meeting on Friday

According to VG information, Russia has not yet responded to this latest invitation to hold new meetings in NATO.

A possible clarification of whether Russia is ready to continue diplomatic contact and future negotiations rather than using military force, may come as early as Friday.

Then the foreign ministers of the United States and Russia, Anthony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov, met in a new crisis meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva.

A central source says the United States and NATO are closely coordinating dialogue with Russia in these critical days.

Russia gets answers over the weekend

In Brussels, NATO leadership is now working closely with member states to provide Russia with a written response to the requirements in Documents published by Moscow on December 17, with specific demands of the United States and NATO regarding changes in the security structure of Europe.

In Washington, the US administration writes a similar response.

These two documents are scheduled to be sent to Moscow next week, VG has been notified.

In their written responses, NATO and the United States will reiterate that Ukraine has a sovereign right to decide the basis for its security policy – and that the decision on any new member state rests with the 30 NATO member states.