MOSCOW: Moscow might sign non-aggression pacts with NATO member states as part of a new European security architecture being negotiated as part of the Ukraine peace process, a senior Russian official said on Wednesday.
The chief Russian negotiator at the Ukraine peace talks said a new European security framework had been the central theme of two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, which resumed this week for the first time since February, but he gave no details of what was discussed.
Senior Russian Foreign Ministry diplomat Alexey Drobinin laid out a package of detailed proposals on the topic Wednesday at a security conference in Moscow.
The first alternative he put forward was that of a collective defensive alliance or of bilateral mutual aid agreements such as Russia has with Belarus and North Korea.
The second potential he mentioned was political agreements not to help each other's foes in the case of an assault, such as the arrangement that Moscow has with Iran. And the third alternative he proposed were bilateral mutual non-aggression pacts.
So, for example, such agreements could be reached with individual NATO member states, which would then receive, for example, additional individual security guarantees from the Russian Federation,” Drobinin told the conference, according to a video of his speech posted online.
