US says NATO will notreturn to 1997 positions

WASHINGTON DC (TASS): The North Atlantic Alliance will not return to the original positions it held in 1997. This was announced on Wednesday by US First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, speaking at an online conference organized by the Kiev-based Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
“I made it quite clear [in talks with officials] to Russia: ‘No, you can’t decide on NATO membership. This is not for you to decide, it depends on the members of NATO. No, you have no right to decide that all offensive weapons must leave Europe. No, you cannot say that we will turn back the clock to 1997 and all the countries that have joined NATO since then must leave NATO. This will not happen,” the diplomat said.
“But if you want to talk about the real issues of mutual security, arms control, conflict resolution, transparency, ways we can improve mutual security, then we support these discussions as part of the strategic stability dialogue that the United States [with Russia] is having.” ], at a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council and within the framework of other NATO institutions, in the OSCE, as well as in the framework of discussions that are ongoing with the European Union and which are taking place today in the Normandy format in Paris,” Sherman added.
“There are many ways to ensure mutual security, but not through ultimatums, not through threats to Ukraine, not through coercion, not through subversion and not through invasion,” the Deputy Secretary of State concluded.
Last December, Moscow handed over to US and NATO representatives its proposals on security guarantees.
The drafts of these documents spell out three priority areas for ensuring European security. First, it is a guarantee of non-expansion of NATO. Secondly, the need to exclude the appearance of strike weapons at the borders of Russia with a minimum flight time.
Thirdly, the need to return the alliance to its original positions as of 1997.
Recently, Ukraine and a number of Western countries have again begun to accuse Russia of allegedly preparing for aggression in the Donbass, where since 2014 an internal armed conflict between Kiev and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that have declared their independence has continued.
Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called such information empty and unfounded escalation of tension. He stressed that Russia poses no threat to anyone.
At the same time, he did not rule out the possibility of provocations from the Ukrainian side in order to justify the sounding accusations, and warned that attempts to resolve the crisis by force would have the most serious consequences.