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Brussels (AP) — Friday’s NATO foreign minister is skeptical about the credibility of President Vladimirputin’s offer to ease tensions ahead of a week of high-level diplomacy aimed at ending the stand-off around Ukraine. Discussed Russia’s military buildup in Brussels.
US Secretary of State Antony Brinken and his counterparts held online consultations to prepare for the NATO-Russian Council meeting for the first time in more than two years. The meeting in Brussels on Wednesday will give NATO Ambassador an opportunity to discuss Putin’s security proposal face-to-face with the Russian envoy.
It’s all part of a series of conferences involving NATO, senior US and Russian officials, and the European Security Cooperation Organization scheduled for next week.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that it was important to talk about Russia and its concerns, and he would talk to Putin again “in the next few days.”
“Dialogue does not mean giving up,” Macron told reporters in Paris at an event commemorating the start of France’s six-month term under the command of the European Union.
It is included in many documents published by Moscow — Draft contract Offering with NATO countries Treaty between Russia and the United States — Despite the fear that Putin may order the invasion of Ukraine, he does not appear to be a beginner in military organizations in 30 countries.
NATO must agree to discontinue all membership programs, not just Ukraine, and end military exercises near the Russian border. In exchange, Russia will respect the international commitments it has signed regarding the restriction of wargames and will end the noisy aircraft incidents and other low-level hostilities.
Approving such an agreement would require NATO to reject an important part of its founding treaty. Based on Article 10 Under the 1949 Washington Convention, the organization can be invited to ambitious European countries that can contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region and fulfill its membership obligations.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, later boosting a separatist rebellion in the eastern part of the country. Over seven years, the battle has killed more than 14,000 people and devastated the industrial center of Ukraine known as Donbas.
Russia has denied any new plans to attack its neighbors, but Putin wants legal guarantees to rule out NATO enlargement and weapons deployment. Moscow says it expects an answer to this month’s security proposal.
NATO-The Russian Council was established 20 years ago. However, NATO ended its cooperation with Russia through the NRC in 2014 after annexing Crimea. Wednesday’s meeting will be the first since July 2019. NATO officials say Russia refused to attend the conference as long as Ukraine was on the agenda.
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Paris AP writers Samuel Petrequin and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.
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