In exchange, Russia would pledge to limit its war games, as well as end aircraft buzzing incidents and other low-level hostilities.
Endorsing such an agreement would require NATO to reject a key part of its founding treaty. Under Article 10 of the 1949 Washington Treaty, the organization can invite any willing European country that can contribute to security in the North Atlantic area and fulfil the obligations of membership.
“It has become crystal clear that not a single ally inside the NATO alliance is willing to budge or negotiate anything as it relates to NATO’s open-door policy,” Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, said Tuesday.
“I cannot imagine any scenario where that is up for discussion.”
Maksim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, says the lack of any real Russian concessions in Putin’s draft agreement probably means that “Russia is ready to tolerate a failure of these negotiations”.
The idea, Samorukov said, is to “demonstrate to the West that we are serious, we mean business. That Russia is really ready to take drastic steps to impose these concessions,” on the US-led military organization.
Still, NATO can’t afford to ignore Russia’s offer.
Some members fear that Putin may be seeking a pretext to launch an invasion, like the failure of the West to engage and any talks that would ease tensions over border forces, missile deployments or war games would be welcome.
For the Kremlin, though, time is of the essence.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that this week’s talks have, so far, provided little reason for optimism.
He said the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting, and one at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday could determine whether it makes sense to continue talking.
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