Moscow says breakthrough needed, US urges action after initial talks

The United States and Russia have concluded security talks in Geneva, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov described security talks on Monday between Moscow and Washington as professional but said a breakthrough and compromises were needed.

Ryabkov said Russia would decide on whether to continue talks with the United States after planned meetings this week with NATO and in the auspices of the OSCE.

Speaking at a news conference after the talks in Geneva, Ryabkov said there was a basis for agreement between Russia and the United States but that Washington should not underestimate the risks of confrontation.

He also said that there had been no progress at security talks between Moscow and Washington on the question of ruling out future Ukrainian membership of NATO.

Russia denies invasion plans and said it is responding to what it calls aggressive and provocative behavior from the NATO military alliance and Ukraine, which has tilted toward the West and aspires to join NATO.

Russia says it wants a cast-iron guarantee that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the Western military alliance because such a move would pose a serious threat to Russian national security.

Ryabkov added that Moscow's response to any failure of security talks with the United States would be of a military-technical nature but declined to disclose what it would be. He said Moscow was focused on diplomacy for now and did not want to discuss what new military deployments it might make in the event of a breakdown in negotiations.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, on the other hand, said the US was open to further talks with Moscow about the positioning of its military personnel and equipment in the region, if Russia was open to taking similar steps.

U.S. officials had frank and forthright discussions with the Russian delegation over the course of nearly eight hours and is open to meeting again soon to discuss U.S.-Russian issues in more detail, Sherman said.

But she once again rejected Russia's demands for guarantees for an end to NATO's eastward expansion and underlined the warnings to Russia on the Ukraine issue.

The U.S. side was "firm" in pushing back on proposals that the West says are "non-starters," she said.

"We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open door policy," she said, while insisting that the United States would not make decisions for other countries without them.

Sherman, the No. 2 diplomat at the State Department, will meet with U.S. allies in Brussels ahead of a NATO-Russia meeting on Wednesday and an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe meeting in Vienna on Thursday.

U.S. and Russian officials would speak again at the end of the week to decide on a way forward.