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Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalizing the operation of their respective embassies after years expelling each other\u2019s diplomats.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks followed an understanding reached during President Donald Trump\u2019s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and contact between senior Russian and U.S. diplomats and other officials in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Speaking during Thursday\u2019s meeting of the Federal Security Service, Putin hailed the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cpragmatism and realistic view\u201d compared with what he described as the \u201cstereotypes and messianic ideological cliches\u201d of its predecessors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first contacts with the new U.S. administration encourage certain hopes,\u201d Putin said. \u201cThere is a mutual readiness to work to restore relations and gradually solve a colossal amount of systemic strategic problems in the global architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putin said that \u201cpart of Western elites are still determined to maintain global instability\u201d and could try to \u201cdisrupt or compromise the dialogue that has begun,\u201d adding that Russian diplomats and security agencies should focus their efforts on thwarting such attempts.<\/p>\n
\u2018Return to civilized communication\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In Riyadh, Moscow and Washington agreed to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. That includes restoring staffing at embassies, which in recent years were hit hard by mutual expulsions of large numbers of diplomats, closures of offices, and other restrictions.<\/p>\n A U.S. Embassy official in Ankara confirmed that the Istanbul talks focused on the issues affecting the operation of respective diplomatic missions.<\/p>\n Moscow and Washington had no immediate comments after the negotiations, which Russian news agencies said lasted for over six hours.<\/p>\n Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Russian parliament\u2019s upper house, said during a visit to Turkey on Thursday that U.S.-Russia talks should help restore the \u201cfull-fledged work of our diplomatic missions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure that the agreements will be reached and we will return to civilized communication, which was disrupted by the previous administration,\u201d she said in Ankara, according to Russian news agencies.<\/p>\n \u2018Restoring relations and dialogue\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Ties between Moscow and Washington plummeted to their lowest levels since the Cold War after Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n No Ukrainian officials were present at last week\u2019s talks. The Kremlin insisted that the meeting was about restoring relations and dialogue with the United States, something it said would pave the way for eventual peace talks.<\/p>\n Speaking during a visit to Qatar, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the talks in Istanbul would seek to resolve \u201csystemic problems that have accumulated as a result of the unlawful activities of the previous (U.S.) administration to create artificial obstacles for the work of the Russian embassy, to which we, naturally, reciprocated and also created uncomfortable conditions for the work of the American embassy in Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n Lavrov added that based on the outcome of the meeting, \u201cit will be clear how quickly and effectively we can move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n (Source: AP)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n