Meeting with the UK was a ‘ conversation between a mute and a deaf’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the meeting with his British counterpart, Elizabeth Truss, as “a conversation between a mute and a deaf” on Thursday, February 10.

During a press conference in Moscow, Lavrov said she did not talk to Truss about bilateral relations, which are at their “lowest point”, because the British official wanted to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the joint Russia-Belarus military exercises, called ‘Allied Determination 2022’, the restoration of the nuclear agreement with Iran and Russia’s cooperation with China.

Lavrov said he informed Truss about the lack of progress in implementing the Minsk Agreement and that there is a possibility of restoring the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.

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According to Lavrov, Truss rethought the Russian initiative to obtain legally binding security assurances, adding that he verbally reiterated the previously submitted written request on assurances and asked Truss to explain how London understands the principle of the inadmissibility of strengthening security at the expense of the safety of others.

Lavrov added that the conversation could have unfolded differently because all he heard for two hours was Truss’s demand that Russia withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian border.

” During the two hours we spent behind closed doors we heard no other intonation apart from Truss’s bellicose tone, ” Lavrov said.

” It’s been a long time since I’ve been involved in diplomatic talks of this kind that could take place live because we haven’t heard anything secret, nothing confidential, nothing reliable, just what regularly sounds from high places in London, ” he explained…