Russia is expected to begin bilateral talks with U.S. negotiators over Moscow’s security guarantees at the start of next year, Russia’s top diplomat announced on Wednesday. “It is agreed that at the very start of next year, bilateral contact between American negotiators and ours will become the first round [of talks],” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov followed up on Lavrov’s comments and hailed reaching a quick agreement on the start of the talks, saying Russia is very interested in the negotiations, while also noting that he hopes Washington and other European capitals will arrive for the talks with “clearly formulated positions.” “Now, it is very important that our counterparts also clearly formulate all basic positions so that the negotiations do not turn into a process for the sake of the process and so that they are focused on specific results after all,” Peskov said, Russian press …