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Russian, US top diplomats holding first one-on-one meeting in Helsinki

The top diplomats are holding talks simultaneously with the summit of Putin and Trump

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have met for talks in the Finnish capital, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene on Monday.

The top diplomats are holding talks simultaneously with the summit of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.

Read also

Putin-Trump summit gets underway

Lavrov and Pompeo greeted each other and shook hands. The talks are being held behind closed doors.

It is the first ever one-on-one meeting for Lavrov and Pompeo since the latter’s appointment as the Secretary of State. Before that, they had talked several times by phone.

The Russian foreign minister told earlier Russian broadcaster RT that the two would discuss all the issues which they would want to focus on.

In late June, a meeting of Lavrov and Pompeo was reported to be scheduled prior to the Russia-US summit. Nevertheless, as the Russian foreign minister said, the US Secretary of State told him in a phone talk that he could not meet with Lavrov, referring to a tough schedule.

Agenda

The ministerial meeting mainly mirrors the summit’s agenda. Among the issues are bilateral relations, which Russia says are at a low ebb, and global issues. The two top diplomats are expected to touch upon Syria, especially the situation in the country’s south, North Korea and the Ukraine crisis as well as strategic stability in the context of missile defense and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Russia-US Summits

Putin and Trump held first talks on July 7, 2017 on the sidelines of G20 summit in Hamburg. Later in November, their bilateral talks did not take place during a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Vietnam, but they had a brief meeting on the sidelines of the forum and adopted a joint statement on Syria.

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