JURIST - Paper Chase: US rejects Russian security treaty proposals

[JURIST] US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [official profile] Friday dismissed [transcript; press release] two Russian proposals for new European security treaties and reaffirmed US commitment to "unified" European security. In prepared remarks delivered at the L’Ecole Militaire in Paris, Clinton said:

the Russian Government under President Medvedev has put forth proposals for new security treaties in Europe. Indivisibility of security is a key feature of those proposals... However, we believe that these common goals are best pursued in the context of existing institutions, such as the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council, rather than by negotiating new treaties, as Russia has suggested...

Clinton also affirmed that American troops will continue to be stationed in Europe as part of American commitment to European security, while casting the occasion as an "extraordinary opportunity to work together" with Russia on security.

In recent months, Russia has campaigned to gain a greater say in security issues with both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [official website] and the United States. On Tuesday, the parties of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) agreed [press release] on the "NRC-MR Framework for NATO-Russia Military-to-Military Cooperation" that will set the agenda for working out details on military cooperation. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov [official profile; BBC profile] said [JURIST report] that negotiations on nuclear arms reduction would likely resume in early February to draft a new treaty to succeed the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [text]. In November, the Kremlin proposed [Christian Science Monitor report] a treaty [text] with NATO that would require consultation between all members on European security issues, and that analysts decried as a proposal to give Russia veto power over NATO affairs.