Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold their long-awaited bilateral meeting in Thursday morning, July 23.
The conversation is scheduled for 6.50 a.m. Bulgarian time and will take place in the capital of the Philippines, Manila, within the framework of the meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers, world news agencies reported.
The news about the exact time was personally confirmed by Russian First Diplomat Sergei Lavrov during a press conference broadcast in real time. “The meeting has already been agreed. Yesterday we met with Marco Rubio and confirmed it. It will be held tomorrow in the first half of the day“, Lavrov told journalists yesterday, quoted by pravda.com.
The main focus of the talks will be the possible resumption of the peace process and the cessation of the war in Ukraine. The US State Department confirmed Washington's readiness to return to the role of mediator. However, representatives of the US administration emphasized to the media that progress depends entirely on the presence of concrete and constructive proposals.
An additional emphasis on the agenda is the so-called “spirit of Anchorage“ — the unofficial diplomatic understandings from last year's summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The Russian side insists that Washington must adhere to the then framework, while Marco Rubio has already categorically rejected Moscow's claims that any final agreements on territorial concessions by Kiev were signed then.
This is the first direct contact at such a high level between the two nuclear superpowers in months. Diplomatic efforts on Ukraine were temporarily delayed due to Washington's focus on the conflict with Iran. According to analysts, the meeting in Manila will show whether there is a real change in the Kremlin's positions, after Bloomberg reported on Vladimir Putin's hardening tone regarding territorial claims in Donbas.