{"id":278186,"date":"2023-12-17T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278186"},"modified":"2023-12-18T09:02:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T09:02:15","slug":"west-secretly-urging-russia-ukraine-talks-lavrov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278186","title":{"rendered":"West Secretly Urging Russia-Ukraine Talks: Lavrov"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasnim News Agency \u2013 Dec 16, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said multiple Western leaders had approached him about potential negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying the Kremlin is ready for dialogue so long as it respects Moscow\u2019s core interests.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking alongside his Belarusian counterpart, Sergey Aleinik, on Friday, Lavrov told reporters that some Western powers were increasingly interested in a negotiated settlement, though declined to single out any country by name, RT reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to and I have no right to name names, but a number of high-level, well-known leaders of Western countries, including one specific Western leader, a very well-known one, several times\u2026 at least via three different channels of communication, sent signals as to why don\u2019t we meet and talk about what to do with Ukraine and with European security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lavrov added that Russia is \u201calways ready to discuss these issues seriously,\u201d but suggested that Kiev has been the unwilling party, saying \u201cWe have never rejected the negotiations and this question should not be addressed to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the foreign minister stressed that any talks would have to account for \u201cRussia\u2019s legitimate interests\u201d and must mean \u201cputting an end to attempts to build (one\u2019s) own security at the expense of others,\u201d referring to Ukraine\u2019s efforts to join the NATO bloc.<\/p>\n

Though Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met for multiple rounds of talks in the weeks after Moscow launched its\u00a0“military operation”, the discussions soon collapsed. Kiev has shown little interest in further dialogue in the months since, with President Vladimir Zelensky even signing a decree barring any talks with the current Kremlin leadership.<\/p>\n

During a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) earlier this month, Lavrov recalled that the two sides had essentially reached a peace agreement following talks in Istanbul in March 2022, noting that senior Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who led his country\u2019s delegation, had recently confirmed this.<\/p>\n

A key political ally of Zelensky, Arakhamia said that Russia\u2019s primary goal had been to pressure Ukraine to accept neutrality and abandon plans to join NATO. Kiev did not trust Moscow to keep its word and wanted \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d from third parties, Arakhamia said, also pointing out then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s role in discouraging the talks.<\/p>\n

Western leaders have so far said little about new peace talks in their public comments, though recent media reports have indicated that US and European officials have quietly broached the issue behind the scenes. According to US officials cited by NBC, Washington is now \u201cworried that Ukraine is running out of forces\u201d and cannot succeed on the battlefield, reportedly prompting new interest in negotiations.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although he didn\u2019t specify anyone in particular, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says several Western nations have been secretly urging Russia and Ukraine to enter into negotiations <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":134831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278187,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278186\/revisions\/278187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/134831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}