U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Feb. 15. Their call followed up on President Trump’s Feb. 12 90-minute phone call to President Putin, which effectively broke the ice on the relationship. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry press release, Rubio and Lavrov “agreed to maintain an open channel of communication to address long-standing issues in Russian-American relations. Their goal is to remove unilateral barriers inherited from the previous U.S. administration that have hindered mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation. Both sides expressed a shared commitment to engaging on key international issues, including the situation in Ukraine, developments in Palestine and the broader Middle East, as well as other regional matters.
“The conversation also covered ways to swiftly reverse the restrictions on Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, which were introduced by the Obama administration in 2016 and led to reciprocal measures. It was agreed that expert-level meetings will be organized in the near future to coordinate specific steps towards removing these obstacles to the functioning of diplomatic missions in Russia and the United States.
