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- Ελληνικά
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said today that he sent a letter on Thursday to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for dialogue within the NATO-Russia Council in order to avoid a conflict in Ukraine, but warned Moscow of the dangers of making weak security guarantees.
Stoltenberg told the Munich Security Conference that there is no evidence of a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine's borders despite Moscow's claims this week that it has begun withdrawing its troops and noted that the risk of conflict is real.
The NATO Secretary General clarified that his letter calls on Lavrov to agree to more talks within the NATO-Russia Council, which was convened in January to formally discuss Moscow's calls for allies to withdraw their troops from eastern Europe.
"I have invited Russia and all NATO allies to meetings within the NATO-Russia Council. And I reiterated my invitation in the letter I sent to Minister Lavrov on Thursday," he said.
He spoke of excessive concern
"We are excessively worried because we see that they continue to deploy troops, they continue to prepare. And we have never seen in Europe, since the end of the Cold War, such a large concentration of troops in combat readiness," he added."
In a rare admission of the limits of diplomacy, Stoltenberg also said Moscow is asking for security guarantees that the Kremlin knows NATO can never meet.
Russia has sent tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine while insisting it does not intend to invade. President Vladimir Putin is lobbying for security guarantees, including that Ukraine will not join NATO. The alliance, however, has responded that, under United Nations treaties, each nation is free to choose its alliances.
"So the danger now is the combination of massive deployment of troops with very threatening rhetoric and making demands that they know we can't meet and they say if we don't meet them there will be military consequences."
Source: APE-MPA
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