Lavrov Says Ready To Talk With Blinken At Arctic Council Ministerial If Latter Interested

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview he has confirmed his attendance at an upcoming Arctic Council ministerial meeting, adding that he would be ready to hold talks with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, at the event, should the latter express interest

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th April, 2021) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview he has confirmed his attendance at an upcoming Arctic Council ministerial meeting, adding that he would be ready to hold talks with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, at the event, should the latter express interest.

"If we talk about our agenda, then in three weeks, Russia will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from Iceland. A ministerial meeting is planned in Reykjavik [in May] ... if the US delegation is headed by the secretary of state, I will, of course, be ready to talk with him, if he is interested. Given that we are taking over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council for two years, I have already told our Icelandic colleagues that I will participate in this ministerial meeting," the Russian foreign minister said.

Lavrov added that Russia has yet to receive any signals from the United States that Washington is ready to cooperate with Moscow in a constructive manner at a number of multilateral events.

"US and Russian businesses are interested in expanding cooperation, as the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently said to us. We ended by saying that there would be some sort of multilateral events on the sidelines of others. However, so far, no signals have been received from the United States," Lavrov said.