MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and United States Secretary of State John Kerry will center round the situation in Ukraine, in particular the implementation of the Minsk agreements, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with three Russian news agencies.
"Indeed, Lavrov and Kerry will have a meeting in Geneva on March 2," the Russian diplomat answered TASS’ question. He noted that Lavrov’s program in Geneva also included a number of other bilateral meetings and attending events organized within the Disarmament Conference and the United Nations Human Rights Council.
"As for the Secretary of State, I cannot comment his schedule but we know that after the Geneva program there are plans to continue talks on the Iranian nuclear dossier, first in bilateral US-Iranian format," Ryabkov noted. "So, it will not be a specially planned meeting, which means the two top diplomats’ schedule did not initially provide for their coming to Geneva for such a meeting, and I would like to stress this fact."
"Correspondingly, the meeting (between Lavrov and Kerry) will center round most pressing, topical matters of the current moment — they are everything linked with the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the situation in Ukraine," the Russian diplomat said. "These matters will be in the focus."
"We also hope that the Middle East issues, including the situation in Syria, will be raised at this meeting," he said. "Obviously, they will speak about the Iranian nuclear program, as the talks are making real progress and we witnessed it and took part in that last week. As the end of March is getting closer, the talks are becoming more intense and now, I am sure, the two diplomats will pay special attention to this issue. Naturally, we have bilateral agenda as well."