Wendy Sherman briefing now at state.gov on NATO/Russia council meeting today 
Sherman: NATO SG Stoltenberg said hoped Nato Russia could meet again soon.
Sherman: understand Russian negotiators will go back after meetings this week and brief Putin, who we all hope will choose peace and security
Sherman: some things are non-starters—not going to rule out Nato expansion, not going back to 1997…a lot we can work on, however. transparency, communication, arms control…
Sherman: (from Russian negotiators): There was no commitment to deescalate, nor was there a statement there would not be.
Sherman says partly why the meeting went on for so long today was that every country spoke, almost all 30, then the Russians spoke more,
Sherman: I think what is important is that at the end of this meeting, as I think the SG said, the Russians were not ready to commit to the series of discussions that the SG will lay out. Nor did they reject those discussions.
Sherman: As I said...all of us, including Russia, have to go back to our governments to decide on next steps. We in US will do it in close cooperation with our allies in Europe, etc.
On de-escalation, clearly we began dialogue today, with Russian troops on border. I think what is important & I think Russia heard clearly it is v hard to have dialogue, to have diplomacy that is conducive to success, when have 100k troops, live fire exercises, subversion,...
if going to have successful dialogue, then they should deescalate.
Sherman says she really doesn't know yet what the Russians are going to do and they may not know yet.
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