The confidential responses of the United States and NATO to Russia's proposals on security guarantees have become the property of the El Pais newspaper. Previously, Washington and Brussels categorically refused to disclose these documents to the public and called them "part of the diplomatic process."
How the Spanish newspapermen got to know the secrets of the "US-NATO court" is not reported. In total, the pages of the publication published copies of two papers handed over to Moscow at the end of last month: a five-page US response labeled "Confidential" and a four-page response from the North Atlantic Alliance labeled "NATO-Russia Restricted".
The content of both previously unpublished texts fully corresponds to the Western media speculations about theses of the US-NATO response to Russia. In particular, as follows from the published documents, the United States and the alliance refuse to comply with Moscow's key demand and commit themselves to further non-expansion of NATO. At the same time, the West indicates its readiness to discuss arms control, confidence-building measures, transparency and the reduction of military risks. It should be noted that in the papers from Brussels, it is Russia that is named responsible for the current crisis and a condition for "further progress" in the negotiations is set - the curtailment of the Russian military presence "in and around Ukraine."
The US response is more diplomatically sustained and replete with references to Washington's readiness "to consider agreements with Russia on issues of mutual concern, including written and signed instruments for existing security concerns", readiness "to discuss the indivisibility of security and our interpretation of this concept" , as well as support for "attempts to improve security in the Euro-Atlantic space." The structure and details of both papers look authentic, and a RIA Novosti diplomatic source in Vienna has already confirmed the authenticity of the documents.
There were no official comments from Moscow regarding the confidential US and NATO responses to Russian initiatives "leaked" in the media. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov refused to discuss the content of the El Pais publication. "We haven't made anything public," the Kremlin spokesman said in an interview with reporters. "And I don't want to comment on it, you need to contact Pais or the Spanish leadership, I don't know, but at least not to us." The Russian Foreign Ministry also did not confirm or deny the authenticity of the diplomatic correspondence disclosed by the Western press. One of the authors of the publication in EL Pais, a journalist from Greece, Ibay Arbide, is now on assignment from the editorial office in Ukraine. According to him, he got the text of the answer thanks to several sources.
bbabo.Net