(Moscow) Russia unveiled on Friday its treaty proposals to limit American and NATO military influence in its neighborhood and wants to negotiate “from Saturday” with the United States these measures presented as essential to prevent an escalation.
These documents are published against the backdrop of renewed Russian-Western tensions around Ukraine, Americans and Europeans accusing Moscow of preparing a military offensive there.
The two texts, called “Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on security guarantees” and “Agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and the Member States” of NATO, provide in particular to prohibit any further enlargement of the Alliance and the establishment of American military bases in the countries of the former Soviet space.
“It is essential that the security guarantees for Russia are written down and have the force of law,” said Sergei Riabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, presenting to the press these documents which had been submitted this week to a senior official in American diplomacy.
PHOTO THOMAS PETER, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov
He also proposed the opening of negotiations “from tomorrow, literally, Saturday, December 18” and said that Moscow had proposed to the Americans that they take place in Geneva.
According to him, these proposals are the means of re-establishing Russian-Western cooperation in the “total absence of mutual trust” and taking into account the “aggressive” policy of NATO “in the vicinity of Russia”.
The manager judged that it was a question of “relaunching the relationship from a blank page”.
Among other obligations, these treaties would prohibit the United States from creating military bases in any non-NATO ex-USSR country or even “from using their infrastructure for any military activity or from developing bilateral military cooperation.” “.
All members of the Atlantic Alliance would also pledge never to expand NATO again, notably to include Ukraine, and not to carry out any “military activity on the territory of Ukraine and in other countries of the United States. Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia ”.
Washington, NATO and the European Union accuse Moscow of having massed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s borders and of preparing for military aggression.
The West is threatening Russia with unprecedented sanctions in the event of an invasion, but seem to rule out any military intervention.
For its part, the Kremlin rejects these accusations and says on the contrary that Russia is under threat from NATO, which is arming Kiev and increasing the deployments of air and sea assets in the Black Sea region.