Lavrov Says Blinken Reacts Negatively to Principle of Indivisibility of Security

Feb. 1, 2022 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone today, but the readouts were not in agreement. According to the State Department readout, Blinken “emphasized the U.S. willingness, bilaterally and together with Allies and partners, to continue a substantive exchange with Russia on mutual security concerns, which we intend to do in full coordination with our partners and Allies.”

Lavrov, however, said afterwards that Blinken reacted negatively to Moscow’s insistence that OSCE documents stressing the indivisibility of security interests must be abided by.

“As for the key issue that generally prompted us to turn to the United States and the North Atlantic alliance with the initiative, the reaction was negative. I mean our demands that all must responsibly implement the agreements on indivisible security reached within the OSCE framework in Istanbul in 1999 and in Astana in 2010,”

he said, reported TASS. The U.S. reply to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees that was received last week showed that “the Americans prefer to focus on discussing still important, but secondary issues,” Lavrov insisted. “In order not to let this happen, when we received a reaction from Washington to our original proposals, I described this in detail in a special message and sent it to all OSCE foreign ministers and the foreign ministers of other countries to let them know our position,” explained the minister.

“Today, I confirmed to Antony Blinken that, after all, this is an issue which we will not allow talking down. And we will insist on an honest talk and on an honest explanation why the West is unwilling to implement its commitments or wants to implement them selectively in its favor.” At the same time, Lavrov said that Blinken did agree that there was a subject matter for discussion with Russia regarding the issue of indivisible security. “We will see how things will develop,” he said.