The US-led bloc’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has decided to convene a meeting on January 12 and has been in contact with Moscow, Deutsche Presse-Agentur revealed on Saturday, quoting an unnamed official.
It’s not yet known if Moscow has agreed to the proposal, but Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that the country was ready for a “direct dialogue” with NATO. She confirmed that the bloc offered to convene a meeting to discuss the tensions surrounding Ukraine. “We’re looking now at how we can arrange that,” Zakharova said.
Russia wants Stoltenberg’s organization to sign a treaty that would ban its further expansion eastward. This would effectively block Ukraine’s aspirations to join. Moscow has repeatedly said that it sees Western military infrastructure along its borders as a threat.