“We are ready for such a conversation. Our Western partners, including the United States, signal a will of principle. They accuse us of having ‘red lines’, but they themselves do the same, only their ‘red lines’. “It is not the real security interests that are dictated, but the negotiating positions. For example, that Russia does not have the right to veto NATO enlargement. We are not talking about the law veto, we are talking about the fact that the enlargement of NATO in itself would be a violation of the political obligations that the countries of the European continent have assumed, the USA and Canada within the OSCE ”, – added the diplomat.
The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation recalled that he was himself directly involved in the preparation of the documents.
“In Istanbul, during the OSCE summit, documents were adopted, where one of the key principles is set – the security of each participating country can be implemented in a way that does not affect the security of others. Recently they have tried to forget about this concept of the unity of European security, “ – said Chizhov.
In the West, they stress that these obligations were not legally binding, but political.
“One can easily object to this that the commitment to Georgia and Ukraine, which NATO made in 2008 in Bucharest, that these two countries will become members of NATO, also falls under the category of political commitments. So this NATO decision has no more weight. Status, more legal force compared to OSCE commitments, “ – said the diplomat.
The interlocutor also added that Russia will continue to work with a number of EU member states. However, the reaction can be mixed and the level of understanding of the problem is different.
Earlier, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is ready to immediately start negotiations on the draft documents on security guarantees.
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