US State Secretary Antony Blinken on Thursday spoke briefly with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the meeting of foreign minister of the Group of 20 nations in New Delhi.”US Secretary of State Blinken asked for ‘contact’ with Foreign Minister Lavrov, during the second session of G20 meet and they had the ‘contact’, there were no talks or full-fledged meeting,” according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zarkhova. The meeting, was the first face-to-face meeting between the two foreign ministers since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began over a year ago and which triggered a rift between US-led Western countries and Russia.
Washington Post cited a senior State Department official familiar with the discussion to say, “During the less-than-10-minute exchange, Blinken urged Russia to reverse its decision to suspend cooperation in the New START nuclear arms treaty and accept a US proposal for the release of US citizen Paul Whelan.”
The US-based newspaper reported that Blinken also reaffirmed Washington’s support for Ukraine’s peace proposal that maintains the country’s territorial integrity, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.
