Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed during a telephone conversation on regular communication on a variety of matters, including preparations for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"They agreed on regular contacts, including those for preparations for a Russian-American summit meeting," the Foreign Ministry said.
Lavrov and Rubio agreed to maintain a channel of communication to resolve accumulated problems in US-Russian relations "for removing unilateral barriers, inherited from the previous administration, to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation."
"[The parties] outlined their mutual willingness to cooperate on major international issues, including the settlement around Ukraine, the situation around Palestine and in general in the Middle East and other regional areas," the Foreign Ministry said. It also emphasized that the foreign ministers of the two countries exchanged views on ways of putting an early end to the policy started by the Barack Obama administration in 2016 for "the maximum tightening of conditions for the operation of Russian diplomatic missions in the United States," which entailed retaliatory measures. "It was agreed to organize a meeting of experts in the near future to agree on concrete steps to mutually remove obstacles to the work of Russian and US foreign missions," the Foreign Ministry stated.
