Nato’s secretary-general has ruled out creating “second-class” members of the military alliance to appease Moscow, ahead of a week of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and western powers that aims to avoid a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia will hold talks with the US and Nato next week for discussions on security proposals drawn up by Moscow, which include a ban on Ukraine joining the US-led military alliance and giving the Kremlin a veto on military deployments in member states close to Russia.
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said these two proposals were unacceptable, after an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from the alliance convened to discuss the upcoming Russia talks.
“We cannot end up in a situation where we have second-class Nato members, where Nato as an alliance is not allowed to protect them,” he told a press conference.
Russia has deployed over 100,000 troops close to its border with Ukraine in recent months, a force that the US says could be used to attack the country. Russian president Vladimir Putin has denied any plans for an invasion, but warned that Moscow could take military steps if its security proposals were ignored.
Stoltenberg suggested that arms control measures and possible confidencebuilding initiatives between Nato and Moscow were possible areas for agreement.
“We are ready to engage in arms control with Russia, conventional and nuclear, but that has to be reciprocal,” he said. “That’s a different thing [to] imposing one-sided restrictions. ”
Putin’s proposal would require Nato to reject a key part of its founding treaty, under which the organisation can invite any willing European country to join if it contributes to security in the north Atlantic area.