Speaking to journalists during a visit to Qatar, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Thursday's talks in Istanbul would focus on “the systemic 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.”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the talks in Istanbul followed an understanding reached during President Donald Trump's call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and talks between top Russian and U.S. diplomats and other senior officials in Saudi Arabia.
Russian and U.S. diplomats held talks in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalizing the operation of their respective embassies after years expelling each others' diplomats.
Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, said Thursday during a visit to Turkey that U.S.-Russia talks should help restore the “full-fledged work of our diplomatic missions.”.
Last week's U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh marked an extraordinary shift in Washington's foreign policy under Trump and a clear departure from U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.
