Revealing Significant Differences With Russia, NATO Secretary General: There Is A Real Risk Of New Armed Conflict In Europe

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. (Wikimedia Commons / US Department of State)

JAKARTA - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said on Wednesday it was willing to talk to Russia about arms control and missile deployment to avoid the risk of war in Europe, but Moscow said the situation was "very dangerous" and the way forward was unclear.

The gulf between the positions of Russia and the United States and its allies looks as sharp as ever, after four hours of talks in Brussels, Belgium, the second attempt this week to defuse a crisis sparked by a mass Russian troop near Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was willing to hold arms talks but would not allow Moscow to veto Ukraine's ambition to join NATO one day, a core demand that Russia says it will not give up.

"There is a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe," Stoltenberg told a news conference, citing Reuters on January 13.

"There are significant differences between NATO allies and Russia. Our differences will not be easy to bridge," he said.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow was ready to talk about the deployment of weapons and verification measures, but would not let its proposal be voted on.

At a lengthy news conference, Grushko said Russia could not take NATO's claim to be a defense alliance that did not pose a threat to it. He said he would respond symmetrically to any attempt to restrain or intimidate him.

"If there is a search for vulnerabilities in Russian defense systems, there will also be a search for vulnerabilities in NATO," Grushko said.

"This is not our choice, but there will be no other way if we fail to reverse the course of events that are very dangerous at this time," he stressed.

Grushko later said Moscow would use military means to neutralize security threats if diplomacy proved inadequate.

The Interfax news agency quoted Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin as saying NATO's "ignorance" of Russia's security proposals created the risk of "incidents and conflict".

To note, this week's talks - starting with the Russia-USA meeting in Geneva on Monday and will continue on Thursday in Vienna at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, come at one of the most complicated moments in East-West relations since the Cold War.

Russia denies plans to attack Ukraine but says it needs a range of guarantees for its own security, including a halt to further NATO expansion and the withdrawal of alliance troops from central and eastern European countries that joined after 1997.

Meanwhile, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman reiterated that the demands were 'not a start'. Sherman told reporters it was difficult to understand why nuclear-armed Russia felt threatened by its much smaller neighbor, and why it was carrying out live-fire drills near its border with Ukraine.

"Is it about the invasion? Is it about intimidation? Is it about trying to be subversive? I don't know, but it's not conducive to getting a diplomatic solution," Sherman said.

Russia did not make any commitments to de-escalate, he said, but also did not say it would not.

Despite the gulf in position, Stoltenberg said the meeting was positive with all 30 NATO allies and Russia had "sit at the same table and engaged on substantive topics".

Grushko said he could not recall any incisive and frank discussions with NATO. He said progress was possible, but there were areas where Russia could not back down.

He said Moscow wanted a written answer from NATO on its proposal and to hear from the alliance how they would implement it or if not, why not do it.