U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday ahead of talks in Geneva that Russia had to choose between dialogue and confrontation.
The US and Russia will hold talks in Geneva on Monday on the tensions over Ukraine and the “security guarantees” demanded by Moscow.
The US delegation will be led by Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, and the Russian delegation will be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. They will meet tonight for a working dinner, but the main talks are scheduled for tomorrow.
“There is a path of dialogue and diplomacy to try to resolve some of these differences and avoid confrontation,” Blinken told CNN’s State of the Union.
“The second path is confrontation and huge consequences for Russia if it resumes aggression against Ukraine,” Blinken said.
Russia has concentrated a contingent of about 100,000 men on Ukraine’s borders, and the Kremlin has issued an ultimatum to the West demanding a halt to NATO’s further expansion to the east and the dismantling of the Alliance’s infrastructure in the so-called new member states on 27 May 1997. , that is, before the first enlargement of NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that if Moscow does not receive the “security guarantees” he has demanded, he will have to take “military technical measures”.
Blinken told the State of the Union that a positive outcome of the talks depended in part on Russia’s readiness to abandon its aggressive stance.
“So if we really want to see progress, we need to see de-escalation, Russia needs to give up the threat it poses to Ukraine today,” Blinken said.-
However, Moscow has rejected any concessions in the forthcoming talks, which will be followed by a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels on 12 January and talks within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Blinken said he did not expect much progress from the talks in Geneva, but stressed that Moscow was waiting for possible sanctions if it refused to engage in diplomacy.
Russia may be subject to economic sanctions, and “NATO will almost certainly need to strengthen its position near Russia and continue to provide assistance to Ukraine,” Blinken said in an interview with ABC this week.
“It simply came to my notice then. The G7 has made it clear that there will be huge consequences. Also the European Union and NATO partners, “Blinken emphasized.
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