The leaders of Russia and the United States gave the Russian Foreign Minister To Sergey Lavrov permission to work on "eliminating problems" that hinder the work of the embassies in Moscow and Washington, reports the Russian agency TASS.
"We had a meeting in Istanbul, now a second meeting is being prepared, and in the meantime contacts are being made by phone and video conference," Lavrov said and added that he did not want to make any predictions, but that Moscow sees progress in contacts.
According to him, "there is a desire of the American partners to remove obstacles for the normal work of diplomats, which are completely unacceptable from the point of view of diplomatic practice."
Lavrov emphasized that it was not Moscow that started "obstructing the work of diplomats", but the administration Barack Obama, and pointed out that Russia responded to such actions only in accordance with the principles of reciprocity, which "no one has abolished" in diplomacy.
Earlier, Donald Trump said that he wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. He announced that he has no plans to introduce secondary tariffs on Russian oil, as he had previously threatened.
According to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Qi, Russia and the United States have taken the first step towards normalizing relations, which is a reason for optimism.
What about the others?
During this time, European officials are still excluded from any negotiations between Washington and Moscow on the conditions for the establishment of peace in Ukraine, and Ukrainian diplomats are hardly asked anything.
Ukraine is determined to work with the new US administration to reach a mutually acceptable text of the mineral agreement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga said.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a new text of the so-called agreement on mineral resources from the US side through diplomatic channels on March 28. One round of these consultations has already been completed," Sibiga said at a press conference with his Lithuanian counterpart Kestutis Budris in Kyiv.
He emphasized that the Ukrainian side is ready to sign the previously drafted framework agreement, and now Kiev has received "a proposal for drafting, and therefore a new text of the agreement."
On Friday, April 4, Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with representatives of a small group of countries ready to send a contingent of their troops to Ukraine, Sibiga said. Kiev is seeking security guarantees as part of any peace deal.
The president of Ukraine said he was waiting for "more concrete" answers from Kiev's allies about their readiness to send peacekeeping troops, which Russia strongly opposes.
Source: Fonet/RTS
