Non-permanent: will the Russian Federation restore its mission to NATO Under what conditions did the alliance offer her to do this?
PEACE January 26, 2022, 00:01
Non-permanent: will the Russian Federation restore its mission to NATO Under what conditions did the alliance offer her to do this? Ekaterina Postnikova Tatyana Baikova
Moscow will not restore its diplomatic mission to the North Atlantic Alliance. This was reported to Izvestia by an informed source. The reason is that the Russian side is not satisfied with the conditions under which the alliance proposes to do this. The Federation Council also believes that talk about the resumption of the work of the permanent mission of the Russian Federation is now untimely - first, it is necessary to make progress in negotiations on security guarantees. Degree of abstraction: why the EU is not invited to security talks And how Brussels sees its role in Russia's consultations with the US and NATO Rhetorical turnover
Russia will not yet restore its permanent representation to NATO: as an informed source told Izvestia, the alliance offered to return to the point at which the representation completed its work, namely, to a diplomatic staff of 10 people, including technical staff. This option does not suit Moscow.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on January 12 following the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) that NATO would be interested in restoring diplomatic missions. This was the first meeting in this format since 2019. The topic of the meeting was Russian proposals for security guarantees. The delegation of the Russian Federation was headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who until 2018 was the country's permanent representative at the organization. Since then, Russia has not had an ambassador to NATO - his duties were performed by acting. Permanent Representative Yury Gorlach.
In the fall of 2021, the status of bilateral relations was again downgraded. In early October, in response to Russia's "hostile activity in NATO member countries," the alliance expelled eight employees of the Russian permanent mission and abolished the posts of two more, leaving 10 people in the mission. After that, the Russian Federation announced that from November 1 it will close its representation at the alliance and the NATO Information Bureau in Moscow.
“We regret that Russia has closed the diplomatic mission to NATO and the NATO office in Moscow. We have made it clear that we would like to restore both the Russian mission to NATO and the NATO office in Moscow, because we believe in dialogue. We need substantial dialogue,” Jens Stoltenberg said on January 12.
According to the interlocutor of Izvestia, given that the alliance proposed to actually return to the situation that was established after the recent expulsion of Russian diplomats, such a statement is nothing more than a rhetorical turn, behind which there is no real intention to resume the full-fledged work of representative offices.
Izvestia asked the NATO press service whether there are preconditions for the restoration of diplomatic missions and how many Russian employees can return to Brussels.
The Russian political establishment believes that the return of representatives of the Russian Federation and NATO to Brussels and Moscow would be useful, but in the current conditions, while there is no progress in negotiations on security guarantees, this is a premature conversation.
- The idea is correct. Of course, we must try to restore normal relations, normal interaction," Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Federation Council committee on international affairs, told Izvestia. - But now it is impossible - we have not decided anything. And nobody needs to simply return the diplomats who will sit in these missions for the sake of sitting. This is again the same screen with which they (NATO members - Izvestia) are trying to get away from the main answers. Now it does not matter, because these representatives will simply have nothing to decide.
Since the beginning of January, a dialogue has been going on between Russia and the West on security guarantees. It is based on Russian proposals, the Russian Foreign Ministry published them on December 17, 2021. They boil down to three key demands that Moscow put forward to the US and NATO: 1) non-expansion of the alliance to the east; 2) the return of its weapons to the positions of 1997, when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed; 3) non-deployment of strike weapons near Russian borders.
On January 9 and 10, Russian-American consultations were held in Geneva, where the parties were represented by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman; January 12 - NRC meeting; January 13 - consultations on the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The parties agreed that the US and NATO would provide Russia with their reaction officially, "on paper." In anticipation of this, on January 21, another Russian-American meeting was held in Geneva - now at the level of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. A written response from the American side is expected this week. Further dialogue will depend on its content.
Translated from Original Document: Russian To English: https://iz.ru/1281923/ekaterina-postnikova-tatiana-baikova/nepostpredstvenno-vosstanovit-li-rf-svoiu-missiiu-pri-nato