A new round of talks between representatives of the US and Russia has started in Istanbul on Thursday.
The meeting is being held at the Russian Consulate General, with Moscow represented by Ambassador to the United States Alexander Darchiev and Washington by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Sonata Coulter. The Russian delegation was the first to arrive at the site of the talks, followed by representatives of the US delegation.
First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Alexei Chepa said that today in Istanbul, where the Russian and US delegations are holding talks, the preparation of a peace agreement on Ukraine is being discussed.
“Further work on the preparation of a peace agreement is under way and this is a very important issue,” the MP said.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia and the US were discussing at the talks in Istanbul exclusively the normalisation of relations between the countries.
“These are negotiations on the line of the Foreign Ministry and the State Department exclusively on the regulation and normalisation of bilateral relations,” he said at a briefing.
In late February, the Russian and US delegations held talks in Istanbul, where Moscow proposed to Washington to restore direct flights between the countries. On 18 February, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia hosted talks on the settlement of the situation in Ukraine. Delegations from the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia took part in them.
