Russia offers US to withdraw several rounds of sanctions on diplomatic missions

The Russian proposal was made during the talks between Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Nuland arrived in Moscow on Monday on a three-day visit for talks that the US State Department said would touch on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues.

The US Embassy tweeted Nuland’s description of her meetings as “constructive” but didn’t give any details.

Ryabkov said he and Nuland made no progress on normalizing the work of their diplomatic missions, which has been hampered by multiple round of sanctions, adding that the situation could exacerbate even further, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated Moscow’s readiness to respond in kind to any unfriendly U.S. actions and called for rolling back a slew of sanctions and restrictions on diplomatic missions.

“Any hostile anti-Russian action won’t be left unanswered, but Moscow doesn’t want any further escalation,” the ministry said. “We are offering to lift all the restrictions imposed by both parties over the past few years.”

It warned that the continuation of the “confrontational” US policy toward Russia would further worsen ties and suggested taking a “realistic approach on the basis of equality and taking mutual interests into account.”

Russia and the US exchanged several rounds of diplomats expulsions and took other steps restricting the activities of their respective diplomatic missions over the past years as relations between Moscow and Washington sank to post-Cold War lows over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, its interference in U.S. elections, its hacking attacks and other irritants.

SOURCE: AP