Following the meeting with the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, underlined that the U.S. and NATO did not perceive Russia's key security demands adequately.
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President Putin said that he updated his Belarusian counterpart on recent contacts with the leaders of Western states on long-term and legally binding security guarantees for Russia from the United States and NATO during the summit. He noted that "it is quite natural that the Belarusian allies are also concerned over this issue."
"We discussed the situation developing with regard to Russia's demands to the West whose key points stipulate that NATO should abandon its designs on eastward expansion, assume the commitment of not deploying strike weapons near the Russian borders and return to the alliance's military potential and infrastructure in Europe as of 1997 when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed," Putin disclosed.
"As I have already spoken about, the United States and other members of the alliance are yet unwilling, unfortunately, to perceive these three core elements of our initiative adequately," underscored the Russian president.
President Putin highlighted that the Western counterparts had formulated a whole number of ideas on European security, intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, and military transparency, issues that the head of the state signaled as willing to discuss.
"And we are ready to move along the negotiating track on condition that all the issues will be discussed comprehensively, without being separated from the key Russian proposals whose implementation is a top priority for us," he stressed.