The first meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in 2.5 years is being held in Brussels

 

 The first meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in two and a half years is being held in Brussels, with the main topic being Russia's security initiatives, a TASS correspondent reported from the Alliance's headquarters.

The parties refrained from introductory statements, but the meeting began in a rather warm atmosphere. Prior to the meeting, the head of the Russian delegation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, exchanged greetings with the head of the US delegation, First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, as well as with other participants in the meeting - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Permanent Representatives,30 NATO countries.

 The greetings were exchanged in compliance with the Covid norms - the touch of his fists. The meeting is held with masks removed by the participants only for the official filming ceremony.

Alexander Grushko is well acquainted with the Alliance's headquarters, he served as Russia's Permanent Representative to NATO from 2012 to 2018. He became the last Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation - after his departure from Brussels and the closure of the Russian mission in October 2021. ., it was headed by an interim governor due to a "lack of meaningful dialogue with NATO," as Moscow complained.

 In addition to Grushko, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin is responsible for the work of the Russian delegation. The NRC talks were the second round of security consultations between Russia and Western countries. This meeting will be a development of the talks between Russia and the United States, which took place on January 10 in Geneva. A meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council will be held in Vienna on 13 January.

As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Permanent Representative to NATO Julian Smith said earlier, the Alliance is ready to listen to Russia's concerns, ready to start an open and meaningful dialogue, but not ready to compromise, especially with regard to of NATO enlargement.

 Russia's security assurance requirements are targeted at the United States and European countries; Moscow has not sent them to such international organizations as the European Union (EU) and NATO. In its simplest form, the Russian Federation's position boils down to three points: the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Europe, the cessation of the deployment of conventional NATO forces near Russia's borders and the creation of military infrastructure there, and the formal rejection of NATO plans. to draw Ukraine and Georgia into the Alliance.

 According to Moscow, this will help correct the serious security imbalance in Europe that has emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. This will significantly reduce military and political tensions and allow a return to the basic principle, which was signed by all OSCE participating States at the 1999 Istanbul Summit, that the security of a country or group of countries cannot be guaranteed at the expense of the security of other countries.