Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov failed to see the answer to the main question in the letter from the United States in response to the proposal not to expand NATO.
"As for the content of the document. There is a response there that allows you to count on the beginning of a serious conversation, but on secondary topics. On the main issue there is no positive reaction in this document. The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of shock weapons that may threaten the territory of the Russian Federation," Lavrov said, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Lavrov said Russia's claims are based on verbal agreements that were in place between NATO and the USSR in the 1990s. However, he noted that Russia will now appeal to the Istanbul Declaration of 1999 and the Astana Declaration of 2010, which stated, first, the right of each state to freely choose its military alliances and, second, the obligation of each state not to strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others.
Lavrov believes that by expanding NATO, the U.S. and its partners ignore the principle that one state - Russia - should not be weakened. When asked about this point he gave to Blinken, he said, the secretary of state shrugged his shoulders.
"I warned him, as well as our other colleagues, that in the very near future we will send them an official request demanding that they explain why they are pulling only one clause from their own commitments, while they are trying to ignore the terms of this favorite clause for them," Lavrov said.
According to Lavrov, this will be an official request to all the countries whose leaders signed the OSCE Istanbul and Astana declarations.
