Istanbul talks: Russia offers to restore direct air links with US

Russian and US diplomats met in Istanbul to discuss normalising the operation of their respective embassies that has been crippled by multiple round of diplomats' expulsions during previous years

Russia has offered the United States to restore direct air links between the two countries during the latest round of consultations with Washington, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Russian and US diplomats met in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalising the operation of their respective embassies that has been crippled by multiple round of diplomats' expulsions during previous years.

The Russian Foreign Ministry hailed the talks as substantive and businesslike and noted in a statement that joint steps were agreed upon to ensure unimpeded financing of the activities of diplomatic missions of Russia and the United States on a reciprocal basis and to create appropriate conditions for diplomats to perform their official duties.

The ministry said that it also offered the US to consider the possibility of restoring direct air traffic." It didn't add any details or possible time frame, and there was no immediate comment from Washington on the issue.

US and other Western nations cut air links with Russia as part of a slew of sanctions imposed on Moscow after it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The US-Russia talks in Istanbul followed an understanding reached during US President Donald Trump's call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and negotiations between senior Russian and US diplomats and other officials in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

In Riyadh, Moscow and Washington agreed to start working toward ending the fighting in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties.

That includes restoring staffing at embassies, which in recent years were hit hard by mutual expulsions of large numbers of diplomats, closures of offices and other restrictions.

The US State Department said that during Thursday's talks in Istanbul, the US delegation raised concerns regarding access to banking and contracted services as well as the need to ensure stable and sustainable staffing levels at the US Embassy in Moscow.

Through constructive discussions, both sides identified concrete initial steps to stabilise bilateral mission operations in these areas, it said in a statement.

Sonata Coulter, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Russia and Central Europe who led the US delegation, and Alexander Darchiyev, the head of the North America department of the Russian Foreign Ministry who headed Moscow's team of negotiators, agreed to hold a follow-up meeting on these issues in the near term, the US State Department said.

Putin on Thursday hailed the Trump administration's pragmatism and realistic view compared with what he described as the stereotypes and messianic ideological cliches of its predecessors.

The first contacts with the new US administration encourage certain hopes, Putin said. There is a mutual readiness to work to restore relations and gradually solve a colossal amount of systemic strategic problems in the global architecture.