A new round of consultations between the US and Russia in Istanbul: “Ukraine is not on the agenda”
The spokesman of the US State Department, Tammy Buce. Credit: AA / Abaca / Abaca Press / Profimedia
The US State Department announced on Tuesday that an American delegation and one from Russia will meet for the second time in Istanbul, on April 10, to discuss “exclusively” about stabilizing bilateral operations at the level of embassies, reports Reuters.
The spokeswoman for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, said that no political or security topics will be found on the agenda.
“Ukraine is not, categorically not, on the agenda,” Buce said on Tuesday in a press briefing.
“These discussions focus exclusively on our embassy operations, not on normalizing a bilateral relationship as a whole, which can happen, as we have observed, only once there will be peace between Russia and Ukraine,” added the representative of American diplomacy.
A diplomatic source had previously mentioned that the discussions would take place at the Russian Consulate in Istanbul.
The delegations of the two countries met in Istanbul and February
In February, teams from Russia and the US held discussions in Istanbul in an attempt to restore the normal functioning of Washington and Moscow embassies. The meeting, which focused on the conditions for the diplomats of the two parties, represented an early test for the capacity of the two countries restoring larger relationships.
In the symmetrical measures of the last decade, Russia and the US have expelled diplomats and have limited the appointment of new employees in the diplomatic missions of the other camp, so that the staff in the two embassies remained at a low level.
Also on Tuesday, but earlier, Russia's Foreign Ministry had announced that delegates of the two states will meet for consultations in Istanbul in the coming days.
The delegation of Moscow will be led by Alexander Darciev, recently named Russia's ambassador to Washington, while the American delegation will be led by Sonata Coulter, the deputy assistant of the Secretary of State for Russia and Central Europe, TASS reported.
Both delegations will be made up of diplomats, and the discussions will focus on normalizing relations at the level of diplomatic missions in the two countries, Russia's Foreign Ministry said, quoted by TASS.
American and Russian officials also met in RIAD, in February, for discussions about how to conclude the Ukraine war, part of a wider effort of Trump to reapopia Washington and Moscow.
