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Russia informs USA: Moscow does not accept American military presence in Central Asia

MOSCOW (TASS): Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that at the talks with the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland discussed in detail a block of bilateral topics, and strategic stability was at the forefront of the international agenda.

“We discussed in great detail the entire bilateral bloc. This was the main focus. Among international topics, the focus was on strategic stability and the prospects for continuing work in this area. called the Russian portfolio, she expressed several considerations, we reacted to them, “a high-ranking diplomat told TASS.

Ryabkov also pointed out that Moscow does not accept the American military presence in Central Asia.

He told TASS that he had discussed the topic of Afghanistan with his American counterpart. “We emphasized the unacceptability of any form of American military presence in Central Asian countries,” Ryabkov said.

The Deputy Foreign Mi-nister of the Russian Fede-ration added that during negotiations with Nuland, he expressed Russia’s concern over the creation of the AUKUS format by Australia, Great Britain and the United States.

“I also put before Ms. Nuland a question in terms of our concern about the consequences of the creation of a new format – the AUKUS initiative – primarily for the nuclear non-proliferation regimes, and stressed that we will carefully analyze all this, primarily from the angle of how Australia is a non-nuclear state, having a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the Intern-ational Atomic Energy Ag-ency (IAEA) – will observe this agreement in the context of cooperation with the two nuclear states within the meaning of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, “he told TASS on Tuesday.

Moscow does not see Washington’s readiness to restore the size of its diplomatic mission in Russia to the existing ceiling of 455 people, Ryabkov said.

“In this area, there is just the least reason for optimism. We do not feel the Americans’ readiness to restore the activities of their diplomatic presence in Russia at an acceptable level, that is, to rise to the ceiling that was set for them at 455 people a few years ago,” he said.

“Instead, they continue to speculate about, they claim, the numerical mismatch is not in their favor, forgetting or deliberately ignoring the fact that not only our embassy and two consulates are located on their territory, but also a permanent mission to the UN,” Ryabkov continued.

According to the Deputy Foreign Minister, the Russian side “brought the Americans back to reality on all these issues” and once again calls for an agreement. “But let’s see what happens in the course of those consultations, which, we hope, will be held by our people and American representatives dealing with bilateral issues in a specialized manner, not putting it off too long,” the high-ranking diplomat said.

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