US Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday, as signs emerge that Moscow and the West might be ready for a detente after more than a year of tensions over Ukraine.
The meeting in Sochi, Russia, would mark the first visit by the US top diplomat to Russia since the Ukraine crisis erupted in April last year.
Putin has refused to budge on Ukraine, where he is accused of sending troops to support separatist rebels, but has signaled his readiness to mend ties with Washington and Brussels as Russia chafes under the burden of biting Western sanctions.
Photo: Reuters
The US Department of State on Monday said that Kerry would meet with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and Putin, who is spending the week at his summer residence in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.
“This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed,” spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to immediately confirm whether Kerry would meet the president during his first visit to Russia in two years, but Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed Kerry’s meeting with Lavrov.
“We expect that Secretary of State Kerry’s visit to Russia will serve the normalization of bilateral ties on which global stability depends to a large extent,” the ministry said.
Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov said the two ministers would discuss the implementation of the shaky ceasefire deal that took effect in eastern Ukraine in February, as well as conflicts in the Middle East.
They were not expected to discuss US sanctions on Russia, he said.
Kerry’s high-stakes visit comes as Russia appears to have put the worst of the fallout from the Ukraine crisis behind it, with the ruble rebounding somewhat and Putin still immensely popular at home.
On Monday, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Russia and pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine now have the capacity to launch new attacks “with very little warning,” days after the US said the separatists were preparing for more military action.
Interfax news agency cited an unnamed Russian source as saying that repairing ties between Moscow and Washington would take “decades.”
The source said Russia expected Washington to play a more high-profile role in resolving the Ukraine crisis.
“It is important that the US begin to play a more constructive role in the Ukrainian settlement, that they force Kiev to enter into a direct dialogue with the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic,” the source said, referring to the rebel-controlled regions. “Let us see what the secretary of state will be able to offer in this context.”
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