MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden made it clear to Vladimir Putin that Washington may allow Russian diplomats to examine the confiscated diplomatic property as the first step, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists.
According to the official, the situation surrounding the Russian embassy in Washington and the US embassy in Moscow was among the issues discussed during the talks. In his words, the US leader lamented that many decisions that aggravated the situation were made by the previous US administration. At the same time, Biden agreed that the issue needs to be resolved somehow.
"[Biden] hinted that, as the first step, our diplomats will be given access to simply examine the condition of our confiscated diplomatic property," Ushakov said.
The presidential aide said that it would be just the first step. However, he continued, "there is an understanding that the situation is in total deadlock and the issue needs to be resolved somehow."
Biden’s initiative
Ushakov told reporters that Biden raised the issue of the two states’ diplomatic missions on his own initiative.
"Biden raised the problem of the functioning of diplomatic missions in Moscow and Washington on his own initiative," he said.
According to Ushakov, the US leader conveyed the complaints of the US ambassador to Moscow, who said that the work in the current mode seems impossible to him. He also complained about the lack of personnel, and other issues. The US leader said the problem should be fixed somehow, the Russian president’s aide continued.
In turn, the Russian president reminded his US counterpart that the situation was triggered by the United States, when Washington "introduced some bans, imposed some restrictions on our diplomats."
"Most importantly, they started mass expulsions of our diplomats <…> and simply seized our diplomatic property," Ushakov said.
The Kremlin aide quoted Putin as saying that Russia "still believes that private property is what matters most for the Americans."
"However, it turned out that this is not so," the official said. "They simply took away what belongs to us, and it is unclear what is going on to those facilities. They seized a total of six facilities from us. It’s time to somehow settle this issue."
Radical initiative
According to the Kremlin aide, Putin told Biden that Russian embassies can no longer fulfill their duty of developing bilateral relations, because "they have to deal with practical issues," such as "cleaning their territory and so on."
"This situation is totally absurd, but it is a result of what Americans started doing to our diplomatic missions five years ago," he said.
According to Ushakov, Putin put forward an initiative that was ‘quite radical,’ by suggesting to zero out all restrictions on the work of diplomatic missions by both sides, including the return of Russian diplomatic property.
"This could be helpful for normalizing other areas of our bilateral cooperation," he said.