The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, urged Russia on Tuesday to reduce its actions against Ukraine and warned that “any new aggression will unleash serious consequences.”
Speaking to reporters alongside Latvian Prime Minister Edgars Rinkevics during a visit to Riga, Blinken said the United States is “very concerned” about Russian troop movements along the border with Ukraine.
Concerns over Russia’s military build-up will be discussed later on Tuesday and Wednesday at a NATO ministerial meeting in Riga. Blinken said it will speak much more on the matter after consultations with allies.
Before the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to reduce tensions in the region and said that the troop movements “have not been provoked and have no explanation.”
“Any future aggression from Russia to Ukraine will come at a high price and will have serious political and economic consequences for Russia,” Stoltenberg said Monday.
The Riga talks also coincide with a border crisis between NATO member states Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with Belarus.
The European Union accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, to travel to Belarus and try to cross the border into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to destabilize the bloc.
The European Union accuses Lukashenko of retaliating for the sanctions imposed on his government.
Blinken said Tuesday that the United States, in coordination with the European Union, is preparing additional sanctions against Belarus for what it described as “its continuing attacks on democracy, human rights and international norms.”
“As long as the regime in Belarus refuses to respect its international commitments, undermines peace and security in Europe, continues to repress and abuse its own people, who simply seek to live in freedom, we will maintain pressure on the regime and will not reduce our called to responsibility, ”Blinken said.
Another topic at the NATO meeting is updating what the alliance calls its Strategic Concept, which was last revised a decade ago.
Stoltenberg affirmed that it is important to return to the strategic document due to the changes that the threats facing NATO have undergone, in “a more dangerous world.”
“We see the behavior of Russia, we see cybernetics, we see terrorist attacks, we see the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” Stoltenberg said. “And we see the security consequences for China, which is now becoming more and more a global power.”
Blinken will travel to Sweden on Wednesday to meet ministers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and will discuss bilateral issues with Swedish officials.
[Con información de Reuters]
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