BRUSSELS, January 12. /TASS/: The Russia-NATO Council ended a meeting in Brussels that lasted four hours, according to a TASS reporter.
NATO had expected the talks to last a little less time, as a news conference by its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was scheduled for 1:30 pm local time, while the meeting started at 10 am local time. The news conference has now been moved back to 2:15 pm (4:15 pm in Moscow).
The council meeting marked the second stage in a series of talks between Russia and the West on Russia’s proposals for European security. The first stage was the talks between Russia and the US that took place in Geneva on January 10, and the third stage will happen as an OSCE meeting in Vienna on January 13.
The Russian delegation in Brussels is led by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin. NATO is represented by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and representatives of 30 NATO member states in Brussels.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier that Moscow expects Brussels and Washington to make a "real step toward Russia." Stoltenberg said before the talks the bloc is ready to hear Russia’s concerns and begin an open and reasonable dialogue but is not ready for compromises, especially on the issues of its expansion.
Moscow’s security demands are addressed to the United States and European nations. Moscow has not sent them to such international organizations as the European Union (EU) and NATO. In a broad outline, Russia’s stance boils down to three key points: the pullout of US nuclear weapons from Europe, the termination of the practice of deploying NATO’s conventional forces near Russia’s borders and creating its military infrastructure there and NATO’s official refusal to draw Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance.
In Moscow’s opinion, these measures will help remedy a serious imbalance in security in Europe that emerged after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. This will help considerably ease the military and political tension and rejoin the baseline principle affirmed by all of the OSCE member states at their Istanbul summit in 1999 that the security of one state or a group of states cannot be ensured at the expense of the security of other states.
