WASHINGTON. March 2 (Interfax) - United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is ready to discuss nuclear arms control with Russia regardless of the current state of bilateral relations.
"I told the Foreign Minister that no matter what else is happening in the world or in our relationship, the United States will always be ready to engage and act on strategic arms control," Blinken said, commenting at a press conference in New Delhi on his contact with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier on Thursday.
The secretary of state once again urged Russia to reconsider its decision to suspend its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).
The Associated Press earlier reported, citing a senior U.S. official, that Blinken, when speaking with Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting, urged Moscow to revise its decision to suspend Russia's participation in New START.
According to the news agency's source, the conversation between Blinken and Lavrov lasted about 10 minutes.
Later, commenting on the conversation between Lavrov and Blinken, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, "In his own manner, diplomatically speaking, Sergei Viktorovich [Lavrov] turned away from those approaches. Well, in Russian you know how it is all called."
"They want to return to diplomacy, let them return. If they engage in self-promotion and such a cheap PR, well, this is also possible. But the result will be appropriate," she said in the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 (VGTRK) television channel.
The previous contact between the U.S. secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister took place on July 29, 2022, when they discussed by phone the fate of American basketball player Brittney Griner, who at that time was a defendant in a criminal case in Russia, and Paul Whelan, who is convicted of espionage. At the same time, Blinken and Lavrov had not had one-on-one talks since January 2022.