MOSCOW (AP) – The US ambassador to Russia on Tuesday said he would go home for consultations – a step that follows after the Kremlin urged him to take a breather while Washington and Moscow negotiate sanctions.
The Kremlin has stressed that it can not recommend Ambassador John Sullivan to leave for consultations, and that it can only recommend it amid the current tensions.
RUSSIA BARS ACCESS TO DNI HAINES, FBI DIRECTORSWAY, DHS SECRETARY MAYORKAS, OTHERS, IN RESPECT OF SANCTIONS
Sullivan said in a statement that he would return to the United States this week to discuss US-Russia ties with members of President Joe Biden’s government. He stressed that he would return to Moscow within a few weeks.
“I believe it is important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues in the Biden Government in Washington on the current state of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia,” Sullivan said in a statement issued by the embassy was issued. “I have not seen my family for more than a year, and that is another important reason for me to return home for a visit.”
Sullivan’s departure comes after Russia on Friday no longer asked Sullivan to leave the country, but said he was “suggesting” that he follow the example of the Russian ambassador to the US, who was recalled from Washington last month after President Joe Biden described Russian President Vladimir. Putin as a ‘murderer’. Russia has not set a time frame for the return of Ambassador Anatoly Antonov to Washington.
PUTINE CRITIC NAVALNY transferred to prison hospital, officials concerned he could die in a minute
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the departure of the ambassadors reflected the current tensions in relations between the United States and Russia.
“Relations have now come to an end,” Peskov said. “There are certain consequences of the unfriendly measures being taken against our country and the retaliatory measures we are taking.”
The Biden government on Thursday announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the US presidential election in 2020 and for involvement in the SolarWind cap of federal agencies – activities that Moscow has denied. The US ordered the expulsion of ten Russian diplomats, who targeted dozens of companies and individuals and imposed new defenses on Russia’s ability to borrow money.
Russia denounced the move by the US as “absolutely unfriendly and unresolved” by ordering ten US diplomats to leave, blacklisting eight current and former US officials and tightening the requirements for the US embassy.
While Biden ordered the sanctions, he also called for easing tensions and keeping the door open for cooperation with Russia in certain areas.
Biden stressed that he had told Putin that he was not imposing stricter sanctions for the time being and proposed meeting in a third country this summer. Russia has said it is studying the offer.
“I will return to Moscow in the coming weeks before any meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin,” Sullivan said in a statement on Tuesday.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called on Monday with Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Presidential Security Council, to discuss the prospect of a US-Russia summit, and they said in a statement to US Rep. Emily Horne. national security council.
Peskov took note of the call in Sullivan-Patrushev and added on Tuesday that “if it becomes useful, the ambassadors will return and resume their duties.”
“As for the Russian ambassador, the president of Russia will decide when it is so useful,” Peskov said during a conference call with reporters.
He said: “Russia can certainly not order the US ambassador to go home for consultations, but can recommend that he do so.
John Sullivan is a rarity in the U.S. diplomatic corps: a political ambassador nominated by Trump administration, who asked Biden to stay on.
His return to Washington for consultations comes not only at a time of rising tensions with Moscow over new sanctions and Russia’s build-up along the border with Ukraine, but also because Biden’s government is gradually consolidating its Russia policy team. set.
Just last week, Senate confirmed Wendy Sherman with Sullivan’s previous post as deputy secretary of state, and the Senate’s foreign relations committee is expected to vote on Wednesday on the nomination of Victoria Nuland, a Russian hawk and expert on the country, to the state. Department’s position number 3, Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
Sherman, who played a leading role in the US negotiations with North Korea during the Clinton administration and with Iran during the Obama administration, and Nuland, who served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs, aroused Moscow’s anger during the 2014 uprising in Maidan in Ukraine and Russia annexation of Crimea, are both expected to be strongly involved in formulating strategies for dealing with Russia. In addition, Biden nominated a former senior member of the National Security Council, Karen Donfried, to Nuland’s old post of European affairs manager at the State Department.
All three women will be the main points of contact for Sullivan in Moscow and he has not yet met any of them in person in his current position.
While the new US sanctions further limited Russia’s ability to borrow money by banning US financial institutions from buying Russian government bonds directly from state institutions, they did not target the secondary market. The Biden administration kept the door open for more hard-working movements if necessary.
LINDSEY GRAHAM CALLS WEAKNESS TO RUSSIA A ‘DEATH’: ‘NO ONE’ IS AFRAID OF YOUR PRAYER
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that “we are analyzing the situation” regarding Biden’s top proposal and no details have been discussed yet. “A big question is what rate the US is going to follow,” Ryabkov said in comments provided by Russian news agencies.
Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading foreign policy expert in Moscow, said that although the Kremlin’s advice to Sullivan to leave for consultations had not been expelled, it reflected Moscow’s dismay at the new sanctions.
“If the political contacts were reduced to zero, and economic ties were never close enough, why did so many people in the embassies?” Lukyanov said in a comment. He predicted that ties would deteriorate despite Biden’s offer to hold a summit.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“During the recent Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States have shared at least some mutual respect and recognition of each other’s political legitimacy, and that is no longer the case,” Lukyanov notes.
“Each party regards the other as on its way to decay and lacks the moral and political right to act as it does,” he said.