What are the next steps diplomatically? Secretary Blinken said he expects to speak to Foreign Minister Lavrov in the coming days and is ready to discuss new steps. What should be these steps? The question of the Europe Time was answered by John J. Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation.
„Well, we will await the Russian Government’s response to the written document that I delivered on Wednesday. The Russian Government also received from NATO a written response from NATO to the draft treaty that Russia presented in mid-December through us, through the United States when Assistant Secretary Donfried and I met with Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov.
So we will await what the Russian Government’s reaction and assessment is to our written responses, and then as Secretary Blinken noted, I would expect that there would be a discussion, a phone conversation, or perhaps a meeting – I don’t know; that hasn’t been agreed to.
The Secretary, Secretary Blinken, has used both formats to communicate with the foreign minister, many phone calls and a number of meetings over the last year. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened in relatively short order, but that depends on the Russian Government, its response to the documents that the United States and NATO submitted and when they would like to resume discussions.
We certainly hope that they will do so. As I said at the outset, our preferred path is diplomacy and we believe the document that we submitted on Wednesday lays out a path to diplomacy and a de-escalation of this situation“, - Ambassador John J. Sullivan said.
