In Geneva, Russia and the USA want to talk about the Ukraine crisis. Even before the first meeting, both sides try to keep expectations of the talks low.
Representatives of Russia arrived in Geneva before negotiations with the USA. The Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow published a video on Sunday lunchtime showing a plane belonging to the delegation at the airport in the Swiss city. The first meeting is already planned for the evening. According to the ministry, the central talks are scheduled for this Monday.
Both the Russian and US sides have already dampened expectations of the negotiations. “There will be no firm commitments in these talks, which will be serious and concrete, but exploratory,” said a US government official on Saturday in a phone call with journalists. All issues would then be examined in Washington and discussed with allies during the week. The government official said he would not be surprised if the Russian side spread false reports about US concessions in order to “divide the allies.”
Russia does not expect rapid progress
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke of “realistic” expectations for the talks. “According to the signals that we have heard from Washington and Brussels in the past few days, it would be naive to assume progress – especially rapid -“, said the 61-year-old of the Interfax agency on Sunday. At the same time, he again called for binding security agreements with NATO. “We need guarantees that NATO will not expand.” On the other hand, they do not want to talk to the US side about the current unrest in Kazakhstan.
The meeting takes place against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis. The US delegation is led by Vice Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. For Russia, Ryabkov should take part. A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council is scheduled for January 12 in Brussels – the first in two and a half years. Thereafter there will be talks in Vienna on January 13th within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
USA worries about Ukraine
The US has been accusing Russia of building troops in areas on the border with Ukraine for weeks. It is feared that Russian soldiers could invade the ex-Soviet republic. Russia denies such plans. Russia, for its part, is resisting the admission of further Eastern European countries to NATO and is demanding a guarantee that Ukraine will never become a member of the alliance.
The US government official said it was not up to Moscow to decide which countries other states would enter into alliances with. “In connection with NATO, we call this an open door, and neither Russia nor any other country will slam it.” In the bilateral negotiations, however, progress on issues such as maneuvers or the stationing of offensive missile systems is conceivable. The government representative again warned Moscow of a military escalation in the Ukraine crisis. He said such a move would result in financial and economic sanctions as well as armament of Ukraine by the US, among other things.
Possible US sanctions still unknown
The government official did not want to comment on any US punitive measures. The New York Times reported on Saturday that one of the possible sanctions discussed by the US with allies was to exclude Russia’s largest financial institutions from global transactions and to impose trade bans on certain technology products from the United States. There was also discussion about arming insurgents in Ukraine to fight against Russian occupiers.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had again made serious allegations against Russia on Friday, but at the same time advocated a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. Blinken called the Russian government’s argument that Ukraine was the aggressor in this case “absurd”. Moscow’s claim that Russia is being threatened by NATO is also wrong. Blinking is scheduled to appear on CNN on Sunday.
In Ukraine, there was at least one demonstration before the negotiations in Geneva. The organizers of the protest in the capital Kiev called on the West to say “no” to the ultimatum of Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian daily “Den” reported on its website.
Source From: Stern
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