Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said on Tuesday that his talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh were useful. According to Lavrov, the US seems to be beginning to better understand Russia's position.
"In order to prevent the torpedoing of the establishment of relations between Russia and the United States, it is necessary to normalize them, which we have been doing today, and, frankly, and not unsuccessfully. We have not discussed everything that separates us yet, but the conceptual approach to further work was determined by the presidents during their telephone conversation," Lavrov told a press conference following talks with the US side.
For his part, Rubio stressed the importance of each country being governed by national interests, noted Lavrov, adding that cooperation between the two countries will be resumed in full.
The Russian minister also noted that Moscow and Washington have agreed to appoint ambassadors of both countries as soon as possible. In addition, they agreed to fix problems in work of embassies in near future.
"We have practically agreed that it is necessary to solve once and for all the problem of the functioning of our diplomatic missions," Lavrov told reporters. "The most urgent and even less complicated thing: it is to ensure the speedy appointment of ambassadors of Russia to the United States and the United States to Russia."
The Russian top diplomat added that his and Rubio's deputies will agree on a date for a follow-up meeting. According to Lavrov, Russia and the United States agreed that everything possible should be done to join efforts in the geopolitical, economic, and cultural spheres.
“It was agreed that our deputies would arrange to meet as soon as possible and address the need to remove artificial barriers to the work of embassies and other foreign missions,” Lavrov said.
Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian minister pointed out that the Moscow and Washington have agreed to appoint negotiators on Ukraine soon. Meanwhile, US-Russian consultations on Ukraine will begin on a regular basis after the appointment of negotiators.
"As for the Ukrainian issue, I mentioned the agreement that the Americans would appoint a representative, and we would reciprocate. After that, the relevant consultations will begin and will be of a regular nature," Lavrov said.
In the same vein, Rubio said that Russia will be an indispensable participant on the talks on how to settle the conflict in Ukraine. The secretary observed that the Russian side is willing to seriously engage in the peace process.
"The second [step] is a high level team, including those who are experts on these topics of the technical side, to begin to engage with their side on parameters of what an end of this conflict would look like. And on that front, obviously, there was going to be engagement and consultation with Ukraine, with our partners in Europe and others. But ultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort. So that process will begin," Rubio told reporters.
He added, "I came away today convinced that they are willing to begin to engage in a serious process to determine how and how quickly and through what mechanism can an end brought to this war." When asked about a suggestion that Ukraine and Europe feel sidelined, Rubio answered that "no one is being sidelined here."
The US delegation proposed a moratorium on attacks on energy facilities during talks in Riyadh, but the Russian side said it had not jeopardized civilian energy supply systems, Minister Lavrov said.
"Today our American colleagues were saying: maybe somehow we can introduce some kind of moratorium on attacks on energy facilities. We explained that we have never jeopardized civilian energy supply systems, and our targets were only those facilities that directly serve Ukraine's armed forces," Lavrov told reporters.
A drone attack on the oil pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) should only strengthen everyone's opinion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky needs to be "put in line", Lavrov added.
Sergey Lavrov also hanked Saudi Arabian authorities for hosting the Russia-US high level talks.
"We would like to express our gratitude to the Saudi leadership for the opportunity to host a meeting between Russian and American representatives," Lavrov told reporters, and described the Russia-US talks as "useful."