Macron believes future security architecture should include Russia's interests
Macron spoke about security guarantees for Russia (Photo:REUTERS / Gleb Garanich)
The West should include security guarantees for Russia if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiate the peace process with Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron told French TV station TF1 on Dec. 3 during his state visit to the US.
Macron said he shared US President Joe Biden's position in regard to the war in Ukraine.
"We are in line with (Biden), helping Ukrainians to counter (Russian) strikes on their civilian infrastructure, to put pressure on Russia so it returns to the negotiating table, to eliminate escalation in regard to civil nuclear power and, finally, to consider new security architecture that includes guarantees for Russia," the French leader said.
Reuters reported Macron thinks Europe should prepare its future security architecture.
"This means that one of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia," Macron said.
"That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table."
However, he stressed it's up to Ukrainians to decide about peace talks.
"Do you think when Alsace-Lorraine was seized (by Germany), we would like some world leader to advise us what we had to do?... It's up to Ukrainian people to decide about conditions and time frame, not us," the president said.
He also added that the world has to support Ukraine with weapons. He said France will donate "additional weapons," but not those that allow "to attack Russia on its territory."
The French president also claimed he was going to negotiate the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) with Putin.
"I will talk with Putin again after the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visits me," he said.
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