Rubio and Lavrov held talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The talks took place on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) events at the Philippine International Convention Centre and lasted around 35 minutes.
According to Russian media reports, this was the first face-to-face meeting between Rubio and Lavrov since September last year.
Before the talks began, Sergey Lavrov stated that he intended to discuss with the American side the prospects for resolving the war in Ukraine and to raise the issue of agreements which, according to the Kremlin, had been reached during talks in Anchorage.
Marco Rubio also confirmed that he planned to discuss the war in Ukraine during the meeting. According to him, the United States believes it would be in Russia’s best interests to end the war. He also noted that the war is preventing Washington and Moscow from finding common ground on other issues.
The Russian delegation included Andrei Rudenko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia; Alexei Drobinin, Director of the Department of Foreign Policy Planning; and Yevgeny Zagainov, Permanent Representative of the President of the Russian Federation to ASEAN. The US side was represented by Alison Hooker, Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and Sergio Hor, Special Envoy of the US President.
The parties have not yet disclosed any details of the talks.
