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Kerry’s suitcase during Moscow visit contained documents for talks — Russian diplomat

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov refused to give any more details

US Secretary of State John Kerry EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

US Secretary of State John Kerry

© EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

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MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The suitcase of US Secretary of State John Kerry during his last week’s visit to Moscow contained documents for the negotiations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Tuesday.

"[There were] documents for talks with Putin and Lavrov," the high-ranking diplomat said responding to a question, but refused to give any more details.

Ryabkov also said the talks were "serious" and neither side made any attempts "to evade topical issues."

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Russian President Vladimir Putin started talks with Kerry on March 24 with a joke. "When I saw you going down the airstair and carrying your belongings, I got a bit upset," Putin told Kerry. "On the one hand, it is very democratic, and on the other, I thought that probably there is no one to help the US secretary of state with his suitcase."

"It looks like everything is good in the US economy, there are no considerable [personnel] cuts [in the Department of State]," the Russian president said smiling. "Then I had an idea that probably the case contained something that you could not entrust anyone with," Putin told Kerry."You probably brought money for us to be able to better bargain on key issues," he said jokingly.

Kerry promised to say what was inside the suitcase at the one-on-one meeting. The top US diplomat told reporters that the content of the suitcase was "a secret between president Putin and me.".

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