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Russia knows how to work with Tracy if she is appointed US ambassador — senior diplomat

It is noted that Lynne Tracy has already worked in Russia

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. Moscow understands how to work with Lynne Tracy is she is appointed ambassador to Russia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Monday.

"Naturally, the appointment of a new ambassador to Moscow is a serious matter. Of course, we know the future ambassador (if she is approved by the US Senate), bearing in mind that Mrs Tracy has already worked in Russia (she was deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Russia when John Tefft was US ambassador - TASS). She continued to keep a close eye on the regions, which we are, so to say, not indifferent to, later up to the current nomination as a US ambassador to Moscow. So, we have certain experience and knowledge about who we will be dealing with, if she is appointed," he said in an interview with Russia’s TV Channel One.

"Ambassadors’ personalities are important. But the ambassadors’ contacts in the capitals will unlikely be as intense as they used to be at previous stages of our dialogue with Washington, and this is a consequence of objective processes. We believe that channels of communication should continue to work," he said.

"We never seek aggravation. Everything we have done in terms of these or those measures against Washington was done only as a tit-for-tat or asymmetric response to the US side’s hostile anti-Russian actions," he noted. "Colleagues in Washington know it only too well. No matter how hard they try to prove otherwise, the simply have no argument. We can scrutinize everything that has been happening over these years when we have been degrading from bad to worse in our relations and why it happened so that the embassies have turned into a problem in our relations."

"So, we will probably have to clear these debris some time. How good Mrs Tracy will be at it is a question to the US side. But first, let us wait for the moment when she is through the necessary procedures in the Senate," Ryabkov added.

On September 22, US President Joe Biden nominated career Foreign Service officer Lynne Tracy, who has been serving as Washington's envoy to Armenia since 2019, to be the new US ambassador to Russia. If approved by senators, Tracy will the first woman serving as US ambassador to Russia. Ryabkov said on September 22 that Russia had given its formal diplomatic approval to Tracy’s appointment.

Prior to her appointment as US ambassador to Armenia, Tracy was the Senior Adviser for Russia in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and, before that, the Deputy Chief of Mission at US Embassy in Moscow, Russia (2014-2017).

Earlier, Tracy served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and as Director for Central Asia at the National Security Council. According to the US Department of State, she speaks Russian.