MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Moscow will not oppose the United States’ joining the Ukrainian settlement if Washington stops imposing its approaches, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said an in interview with the International Affairs journal.
"We should not follow the Americans’ vision at all, they are detached from the reality, they ignore both the reality to a significant extent and the top-level agreements that were reached," he said. "Consequently, we cannot adjust to such approaches simply at some whim. Once we notice there are some changes in those approaches, there are developments, it will be safe to say that we are not against," Ryabkov added.
Washington’s readiness to operate "in the real framework instead of imposing its own vision on what is good and what is bad, what Russia should and should not do" is necessary for Russia and the US to cooperate in the Ukrainian settlement issue, the deputy minister noted, adding that he sees "no political will to do it".
Work within the Minsk format
As the senior Russian diplomat pointed out, it is hard to imagine a constructive US contribution to the work on Ukraine within the Minsk format.
"We do not observe any wish to reckon with our approaches and our assessments. Naturally, it is hard to imagine with such a position a constructive US contribution to the work, for example, in the Minsk format," Ryabkov said.
"However, the Americans had the experience of joining these efforts in the past," the high-ranking Russian diplomat pointed out.
The summit of the Russian and US presidents in Geneva did not clarify this issue, the senior Russian diplomat said.
"Different options may exist in this regard. Everything depends on the person that the US side will appoint as the chief coordinator of these efforts. There is no clarity on this score so far. And the Geneva summit did not add any features to this black and white and mono-dimensional picture," the Russian deputy foreign minister said.
"For our part, we do not rule out anything. Everything depends on whether the Americans will succeed in shaping a more dimensional, substantive, sober, calm and responsible approach to all that is taking place in Donbass and around Ukraine as a whole," Ryabkov said.
The Russia-US summit proposed by Washington was held in Geneva on June 16.