Moscow, Russia – The Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Wednesday that the upcoming summit on Friday between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, will allow the two leaders to discuss all “outstanding issues” between the two countries. This will include the Ukrainian crisis.
TASS news agency quoted Alexei Fadeev, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s press and information department, as saying during a press briefing on Wednesday that the US-Russian summit scheduled to be held in Alaska “will allow the two leaders to focus on discussing all the accumulated issues. These range from the Ukrainian crisis to the obstacles to establishing a normal and effective bilateral dialogue. Such a dialogue is crucial to ensuring international peace and stability.”
Fadeev explained, “Russia’s position on peace in Ukraine has not changed. This is the position that Putin set in June last year”.
He stated that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will participate in the Russian-American summit in Alaska.
The Russian Foreign Ministry considered that the efforts made by European leaders to consult with Washington, before the upcoming summit between Putin and Trump, are “politically and practically unimportant”.
The spokesman stressed that the West’s decision to expand NATO and attempt to annex Ukraine was one of the reasons for the crisis.
He pointed out that Moscow has not yet received an official response to the initiative he put forward during the Istanbul negotiations in July. This initiative was to form three working groups to negotiate political, military and humanitarian issues.
The Foreign Ministry warned that Azerbaijan’s possible lifting of the arms embargo on Kiev could “hinder a peaceful settlement and exacerbate the situation on the ground.”
