Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his American counterpart, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, are sitting down to discuss Moscow’s security proposals and determine whether a deal can be done to de-escalate tensions with NATO.
The two top diplomats are holding talks in the Swiss city of Geneva, with the pair expected to publicly announce the results of their discussions later on the same day. The head-to-head is the latest in a series of diplomatic meetings held after Russia unveiled two draft treaties, one addressed to Washington and the other to NATO, that it says would reduce the risk of conflict on the European continent.
Among the proposals is a demand that the US-led military bloc issue written guarantees that it will not expand further toward Russia’s borders, effectively blocking Ukraine from future membership. In addition, Moscow insists that NATO should refrain from military activity on the territory of the former Warsaw Pact states that joined after 1997, after the fall of the Soviet Union.