Russia-NATO Council meeting to kick off in Brussel

The meeting comes after the US-Russia talks in Geneva which were held on Monday.

The meeting will start at 09:00 GMT and be followed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's press conference at around 13:30 GMT. The issues of arms control, European security and military transparency will be high on the meeting’s agenda. Both sides have declared that they have a number of issues and concerns to discuss and that they are serious about their positions, Sputnik news agency reported.

The Council will be chaired by Stoltenberg. The US delegation to the NATO-Russia Council will be headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Wendy Sherman. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov is expected to head the Russian delegation.

In December, Russia presented draft agreements on security guarantees in Europe to the United States and NATO.

"The meeting comes after the US-Russia talks in Geneva which were held on Monday.The meeting will start at 09:00 GMT and be followed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's press conference at around 13:30 GMT"These guarantees include legal obligations that NATO will refrain from advancing eastwards and accepting new members from the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine and Georgia, as these have expressed their desire to join NATO, as well as to refrain from creating NATO military bases on the territories of former Soviet countries. Another proposal is the non-deployment of short- and intermediate-range missiles in the region.

MA/PR