The week that begins is key for security in Europe, with meetings on which the future of relations between United States and Russia and, with it, the coexistence of European countries with their powerful neighbor to the east.
The main course will be served in Geneva, where the United States and Russia meet in the so-called strategic dialogue, in which the US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, and the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Riabkov, will begin the negotiation that should mark the future of their security relations in the next years. It is the first that has an “extraordinary” character, with a real crisis: Ukraine.
Other meetings will also be held today between Nato and Ukraine, in Brussels; on Wednesday the 12th, also in Brussels, at the NATO-Russia council, and on Thursday the 13th, in Vienna, at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the only institution to which all those involved belong.
The United States wants to focus the Geneva meeting on bilateral issues and let issues related to third countries, such as Ukraine, be the subject of meetings in other forums.
The US has indicated that it is not willing to give in to a possible Ukraine rapprochement with NATO, “since Russia cannot decide whose other countries are or are no longer allies.”
Russia wants to discuss the placement of nuclear weapons outside the borders of both countries, which would include short and medium-range missiles, from which Russian territory can be reached; it wants the deployment of troops and weapons to be prohibited in areas that the other country considers a threat to its national security or to establish military bases – or to deploy troops – in the territory of the former Soviet republics or establish bases there.
In addition, he indicated that the deployment of missiles in Europe and military maneuvers are two areas in which they foresee that “understandings” may occur.
But there is a disagreement in principle: the US has indicated that it is not willing to give in on a possible Ukraine rapprochement with NATO, “since Russia cannot decide whose other countries are or are no longer allies.”
But for Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, has deployed thousands of soldiers near the border and fuels the Donbas’ separatist claims, Ukraine must remain outside of NATO and must not host Alliance weaponry of any kind that could endanger your safety.
The situation is very delicate: the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has warned Russia that any additional type of aggression “will have massive consequences”; NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last Friday that the risk of conflict between Ukraine and Russia “is real” and Riabkov said that Moscow will not make any concessions.
EFE
.
#Europe #week #crucial #security #meetings