NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that security negotiations between Russia and the West may not resolve all issues this week but could provide a pathway to avoid conflict.
"I don’t think that we can expect that these meetings will solve all the issues," he told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
"What we are hoping for is that we can agree on a way forward, that we can agree on a series of meetings, that we can agree on a process," Reuters cited Stoltenberg as saying.
Stoltenberg's statements come as delegations from Russia and the US have started talks on security guarantees in Geneva. Earlier, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that although Moscow was ready to hear Washington's position regarding the non-deployment of missiles on Ukraine's territory, the dialogue would only be effective if the decision of the Budapest summit on Ukraine's possible NATO membership were revised.
Last month, Moscow presented its draft proposals on security guarantees for Russia, the US and NATO. One of the proposals suggests that NATO should end its eastward expansion and demanded that Ukraine be prevented from joining the alliance.
