The upcoming meeting of the Russian and US top diplomats, Sergey Lavrov and Antony Blinken, on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Reykjavik will be an attempt to take bilateral relations to a more stable and predictable path, US Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Friday, TASS reports.
During a special briefing on the US secretary of state’s upcoming visit to Denmark, Iceland and Greenland, Price said Washington would "act firmly in defense of U.S. interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us, that target us or our allies."
"At the same time, we’ve also consistently said that we want a relationship with Moscow that is both stable and predictable, and that is in part because we have some set of common interests, whether that’s in the realm of climate, strategic stability, Iran, North Korea. We want to be in a position to pursue those common interests and what’s in our national interest, including, where appropriate, by working with Moscow where we can," the spokesperson continued.
"And so that’s in part what this meeting is going to be all about. It’s an effort to try to get this relationship on a more stable and predictable path, or at the very least to test the proposition as to whether that’s possible. I wouldn’t want to get ahead of the conversation, but I think you can expect it will reflect the totality of the bilateral relationship - the good, the bad, and the in between," he added.
The ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council will take place in Reykjavik next week. Lavrov and Blinken had a phone conversation earlier this week. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the two diplomats "agreed to hold a separate meeting on the sidelines of the [May 20] session to review key issues of bilateral relations and the international agenda."
