The head of Russian diplomacy announced that the second meeting of Russian and American diplomats will be held in Istanbul tomorrow, following the first talks on February 18 in Saudi Arabia, all at a time of rapprochement between Moscow and Washington.
"Our diplomats and senior experts will meet and discuss the systemic problems that have accumulated," Lavrov said at a news conference in Qatar.
He said that "such a meeting will be held tomorrow in Istanbul."
Lavrov was in Ankara on Monday, before heading to Iran, which is an ally of Moscow, and then to Qatar on Tuesday.
NATO member Turkey wants to play a prominent role in ending hostilities in Ukraine, as it attempted to do in March 2022 when it twice hosted direct talks between Moscow and Kiev before those talks collapsed.
The first Russian-American talks since February 2022 and the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were held on February 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a few days after a telephone conversation between Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, which ended a three-year policy of isolating Russia by Washington and the West.
The Russians and Americans have said they want to review bilateral relations in detail, sparking fears in Kiev and among its European allies that they will be excluded from resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
After the meeting in Riyadh, Sergei Lavrov and his American counterpart Marco Rubio said they wanted to restore the normal functioning of their diplomatic missions, after numerous mutual expulsions of representatives in their embassies since 2022.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Sunday that he "expects real progress" during the meeting, which he said should be held at the level of "department officials" of the two countries' foreign ministries.
In parallel, the Europeans, led by Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, are trying to convince Trump that the Americans should provide logistical support to possible European troops that would be deployed in Ukraine in the coming months to monitor the implementation of a future ceasefire agreement.
Last Sunday, Lavrov said that such a possibility was "unacceptable" for Moscow, and today he said that "no one asked them about it."
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