US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday, March 2, that he asked his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to "end" Russia's "war of aggression" in Ukraine, during their exchange on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in India.
"I told the (Russian) foreign minister what I, like so many others, said last week at the United Nations and what so many G20 foreign ministers said today: put end this war of aggression, engage in meaningful diplomacy that can produce a just and lasting peace,” Antony Blinken told reporters.
The two men had a "brief" meeting on the sidelines of the G20 talks, their first since the start of the war in Ukraine, an American official said.
Antony Blinken earlier in the day told his Russian counterpart of the United States' commitment to support Ukraine and urged Russia to reverse its decision to suspend the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty. said an American official on condition of anonymity.
On the sidelines of this G20 meeting, Sergei Lavrov spoke earlier with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, whose country has close ties with Moscow.
Russia castigates the West
The two men "unanimously rejected attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, to impose unilateral approaches through blackmail and threats", according to a press release from Russian diplomacy.
In front of his G20 counterparts, the head of Russian diplomacy castigated the "lewd behavior of a series of Western delegations, which turned the work on the G20 agenda into a farce", according to the Russian public agency CASS.
With AFP
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