US says offered Russia reciprocal action, warned on Ukraine

After more than seven hours of talks in Geneva with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Sherman said the United States was ready to meet again, but that Russia had not offered assurances that it will pull back troops amassed near Ukraine.She declined to give full details but said the United States made proposals on missile placement and said it was "open to discussing the future of certain missile systems in Europe" along the lines of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which former president Donald Trump withdrew.She said the United States was "ready to move as expeditiously as one possibly can under these circumstances" but said that discussions would take time."We were firm, however, in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters to the United States. We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open-door policy."If Russia invades, "there will be significant costs and consequences, well beyond what they faced in 2014," when Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula and backed an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, she said."We made it very clear that it's very hard to have constructive, productive and successful diplomacy without de-escalation because the escalation obviously increases tensions and doesn't create the environment for real negotiations," she said.sct/bgs...

from Daily Telegraph https://ift.tt/3r7kzx0

January 10, 2022 at 11:09PM
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
After more than seven hours of talks in Geneva with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Sherman said the United States was ready to meet again, but that Russia had not offered assurances that it will pull back troops amassed near Ukraine.She declined to give full details but said the United States made proposals on missile placement and said it was "open to discussing the future of certain missile systems in Europe" along the lines of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which former president Donald Trump withdrew.She said the United States was "ready to move as expeditiously as one possibly can under these circumstances" but said that discussions would take time."We were firm, however, in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters to the United States. We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open-door policy."If Russia invades, "there will be significant costs and consequences, well beyond what they faced in 2014," when Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula and backed an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, she said."We made it very clear that it's very hard to have constructive, productive and successful diplomacy without de-escalation because the escalation obviously increases tensions and doesn't create the environment for real negotiations," she said.sct/bgs...