Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who is Russia’s point person for the discussions that are now underway with the United States after the significant Trump-Putin phone conversation of Feb. 12, spoke with RIA Novosti on Feb. 24 to evaluate the prospects of those talks. He began by welcoming the serious tone so far:
“We record and carefully analyze all signals from Washington, especially from the top man. I must say that the tone of contacts in recent days really differed substantially from what there had been in the past. We welcome that change of tone on the American side and are ourselves ready for businesslike and practical dialogue.” That said, it remains to be seen what concrete steps can be taken, Ryabkov stated. “But the extent to which the change of tone and nature of the statements may be transformed into practical actions, and how quickly that may happen, is an open question for me…. When we go further, we’ll understand better whether or not there is really a genuine, implementable chance of achieving rapid shifts for the better, or if it is going to require deeper and, accordingly, more time-consuming expert work and a deeper search for compromise solutions.”
