MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. Russia will engage in creating counter threats if NATO turns down the Russian proposals for security guarantees, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Solovyov Live YouTube channel on Saturday.
"We are making clear that we are ready to talk about switching over from a military or a military-technical scenario to a political process" that will strengthen the security of all countries in the area of the OCSE, Euro-Atlantic and Eurasia, he said. "If that doesn’t work out, we signaled to them (NATO-TASS) that will also move over to creating counter threats, but it will then be too late to ask us why we made these decisions and why we deployed these systems."
The Europeans must think about the prospect of turning the continent into a filed of military confrontation, he said.
Russia in Friday released draft agreements titled the Treaty Between the US and Russia on Security Guarantees and On Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The proposals were handed over to a US representative at a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry on December 15.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier called on NATO to start substantive talks to give Russia reliable and long-term security guarantees. The guarantees will need to be legally binding because, Putin said, the West had walked back on their previous verbal commitments.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov told Sullivan that Russia was ready for an immediate start of the talks about the proposed agreements on security guarantees. Russia would be represented in the talks by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.