SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The United States and Russia said officials from the two countries would hold security talks on January 10 to discuss concerns about their respective military activity and confront rising tensions over Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the Biden administration said late on Monday that Russia and NATO were also likely to hold talks on January 12, according to Reuters.
Another broader meeting including Moscow, Washington and other European countries was set for January 13, Reuters cited the spokesperson as saying.
“When we sit down to talk, Russia can put its concerns on the table, and we will put our concerns on the table with Russia’s activities as well,” the spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council was quoted as saying.
“There will be areas where we can make progress, and areas where we will disagree. That’s what diplomacy is about.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he hoped the talks with the U.S. in Geneva would launch a process that would give Russia new security guarantees from the West.
He further said the meeting with NATO on Jan. 12 would be held in Brussels, Reuters reported.
The talks on January 13 would involve the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes the U.S. and its NATO allies, as well as Russia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, he added.
Russia’s deployment of troops near Ukraine has raised fears in the West that Moscow, which seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and has since backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, may be poised for a new attack.
Russia has denied plans for an assault but says it could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met.
Moscow, worried by what it says is the West’s re-arming of Ukraine, has said it wants legally-binding guarantees NATO will not expand further eastwards, and that certain offensive weapons will not be deployed to Ukraine or other neighboring countries.
The U.S. administration has promised economic sanctions if Russia attacks Ukraine. It says it cannot promise a sovereign state such as Ukraine would never join NATO.
