Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will hold security talks in Geneva on January 10, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday amid growing tensions over Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Russia is due to hold talks with NATO in Brussels on January 12th, ahead of a wider meeting involving Russia, the United States and other European countries on January 13th, which the Russian Foreign Ministry said would take place in Vienna.
Russia has alarmed Western countries by amassing tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine in the past two months, the British agency said. Moscow denies planning to attack Ukraine and says it has the right to move its troops to its own land as it sees fit.
Moscow, worried about what it sees as the rearmament of Ukraine by the West, said it wanted legally binding guarantees from NATO's military alliance for its non-expansion to the east and the non-deployment of weapons dangerous to Russia, Reuters reported.
"During the talks, we will seek firm legal guarantees for Russia's security from the United States, namely that NATO will not move east and that weapons systems threatening Russia will not be located near our borders," Maria said. Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, briefed Thursday.
The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which includes the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states, will take part in the talks on 13 January.
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