Russian, US envoys meet in Istanbul, deliberate on reopening embassies

Russian and US diplomats held talks in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalising the operation of their respective embassies after years expelling each others’ diplomats.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the talks in Istanbul followed an understanding reached during President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and talks between top Russian and US diplomats and other senior officials in Saudi Arabia.

Last week’s US-Russian talks in Riyadh marked an extraordinary shift in Washington’s foreign policy under Trump and a clear departure from US-led efforts to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.

Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house, said on Thursday during a visit to Turkey that US-Russia talks should help restore the ‘full-fledged work of our diplomatic missions’. “I’m sure that the agreements will be reached and we will return to civilised communication, which was disrupted by the previous administration,” she said in Ankara.

Later, President Putin, warned ‘Western elites’ against trying to sabotage a potential rapprochement between Russia and the US, saying Moscow would use its intelligence services to thwart such efforts.