Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that he will hold a meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Marco Rubio, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which will be held from September 22 to 28.
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“I have a scheduled meeting in New York with Rubio, on the sidelines of the (UN) General Assembly,” Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS, with Washington not having commented so far on this possible meeting, which would have Ukraine and bilateral relations as its main topics.
Thus, he reiterated that Moscow considers that the United States “understands the underlying causes of this conflict, unlike the rest of the Western countries,” while praising the interest of the Donald Trump Administration in trying to reach a negotiated agreement.
“The United States has clearly stated that Ukraine’s accession to NATO must be forgotten if we want to reach an agreement, and that we must recognize the reality on the ground,” Lavrov said, who also emphasized that Moscow is ready to resume negotiations “at the trilateral or bilateral level.”
“We are always willing to negotiate; we have never delayed these negotiations nor tried to complicate them,” said the head of Russian diplomacy, who insisted that Moscow “will not suspend” its offensive during the negotiations. “We have never rejected negotiations and those that have taken place have not been interrupted on our initiative,” he noted.
In this regard, he highlighted that “from time to time, some European countries offer to establish some kind of communication channel, without announcing it publicly.” “It has happened. We have never refused, even with the Europeans,” Lavrov said, who in any case criticized the stance of European countries and their alliance with Kiev.
The Russian Foreign Minister criticized the “obstinate stance” of the European Union (EU) regarding a possible peace agreement, including its refusal to recognize the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula — carried out in 2014 — and the Donbas provinces, partially occupied in the framework of the invasion unleashed in February 2022 by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
