A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York is being discussed and the chances of it happening are high. This was reported to TASS by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
“It is being discussed. I think the chances are high“, he said, answering a question on the subject.
Earlier it became known that Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Lavrov as the head of the Russian delegation to the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.
The anniversary session started on September 9. The high-level week will be held from September 23 to 29.
Moscow and Washington will try to hold another meeting on the problems in their relations before the end of autumn, Ryabkov said.
“If we talk about some time frame, we strive to hold such an event at least by the end of autumn“, the deputy minister noted.
According to him, the next meeting in this format has been postponed several times, and the reasons for this were not only organizational, logistical or due to schedule discrepancies. “There was that too, but it was not the main one. The main reason is that we do not want such a meeting not to lead to tangible progress“, Ryabkov explained. “There is a risk of getting stuck and not making any progress.“
“Therefore, it is better to try, if there is political will on both sides, to work behind the scenes, maybe it will be possible to form a basis for the next step or steps, then all the logistical and organizational aspects will be settled quickly“, the deputy foreign minister added.
In July, Ryabkov said that Russia and the United States would agree on the dates for the third round of consultations. At that time, he noted that “there is no slowdown in progress with the United States on the bilateral agenda, there is a technical pause“.
On February 27 and April 10, talks were held in Istanbul to normalize the working conditions of the Russian and American embassies and discuss ways to overcome problems in relations between the two countries. The Russian delegation at the first and second rounds of consultations was led by the current Ambassador to Washington, Alexander Darchiev, and the American delegation was led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Sonata Coulter.