Russia is not interested in war, but it will not allow its security interests to be neglected either, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with radio stations Friday.
"If it depends on the Russian Federation, there will be no war. We do not want wars, but we will not allow our interests to be brutally attacked, our interests to be ignored either," he stressed.
The minister noted that so far negotiations with the United States and NATO on security issues have not yet been completed. "As you know, the Americans and NATO have been studying our very simple proposals concluded in the draft treaty with Washington and the agreement with the North Atlantic Alliance for more than a month, and we only received answers the day before yesterday, which in such Western-style cast a shadow on the stain in many ways, but there are rational seeds on secondary issues," Lavrov explained.
He said that at some point, those "secondary issues" were very important. The issue in question, according to the foreign minister, is the problem of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, which emerged after the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). "We urged them to listen to a voice of reason after all, the Russian president then sent his message to all OSCE members, where he proposed to join our unilateral moratorium in agreeing on verification measures. This was ignored, and now it is included in their proposals," Lavrov noted.
In addition, he said, the response proposals contain ideas similar to previously ignored Russian initiatives to move exercises farther away from the border on both sides, to agree on a maximum distance for approaching combat aircraft and warships, as well as several other de-confliction, de-escalation and confidence-building measures.
"All of these have been rejected for the last two or three years. Now it's all proposed to be discussed. That is, the constructive that is contained in these proposals is essentially borrowed from Russian initiatives of recent times. But this is, I think, at least something, Russian speaking. But the main thing for us is to deal with conceptual foundations on which the European security is built," summed up the minister.
Response to the reaction of the United States
According to the minister, Russia is preparing different versions of the response to the US and NATO's response on security guarantees, the decision will be made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"What will we do if the West does not heed the voice of reason, the president has already said about this: if attempts to agree on mutually acceptable principles of security in Europe do not yield results, then we will retaliate. Asked directly what those measures might be, he said: "They could be very different. I will make decisions based on what our military presents to me. Naturally, other agencies will also be involved in the preparation of these proposals. The interdepartmental study of the answers we have received is now underway," Lavrov said.
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Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS