Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting, Reykjavik, May 19, 2021
First of all, I would like to thank you for your proposal to meet here. This is important for our relations and for deciding how we should move forward, just as our Presidents want us to do.
There are serious differences in our views on the international situation and in our approaches to the tasks that need to be addressed to normalise it. Russia’s position is simple: we are ready to discuss all issues without exception if the discussion is honest, with facts on the table and based on mutual respect.
We are ready to clear away the obstructions we inherited from the previous US administrations as regards the functioning of US diplomatic offices in Russia and Russian diplomatic missions in the United States.
