TASHKENT: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would soon propose a time for a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which Blinken has said he wants to discuss an exchange of prisoners held in Russian and US jails.
Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had made a “substantial offer” to obtain the release of US basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, both detained in Russia.
A source said that Washington was willing to exchange convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout, jailed in the United States, as part of such a deal.
Blinken and Biden have not spoken since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Families of the US detainees have been increasing pressure on President Joe Biden, most recently in the case of two-time Olympic gold medallist Griner, who was arrested on drugs charges at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17.
Lavrov told a news conference that talks on prisoner exchanges had been taking place since a summit in Geneva last year where presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden had agreed to nominate officials to look into the issue.
He said his ministry was not involved in that, but “nevertheless, I will listen to what he (Blinken) has to say.”
Speaking during a trip to Uzbekistan, Lavrov said he would talk to Blinken when he returned to his office.
“It’s clear this is unlikely to work out today. But in the coming days we will offer our American colleagues a convenient date,” he said.
Russia’s Lavrov says will propose time for call with US on prisoners exchange
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Russia’s Lavrov says will propose time for call with US on prisoners exchange
- Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had made a “substantial offer” to obtain the release of US basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan
South Korea will boost medical school admissions to tackle physician shortage
- Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs
SEOUL: South Korea plans to increase medical school admissions by more than 3,340 students from 2027 to 2031 to address concerns about physician shortages in one of the fastest-aging countries in the world, the government said Tuesday.
The decision was announced months after officials defused a prolonged doctors’ strike by backing away from a more ambitious increase pursued by Seoul’s former conservative government. Even the scaled-down plan drew criticism from the country’s doctors’ lobby, which said the move was “devoid of rational judgment.”
Kwak Soon-hun, a senior Health Ministry official, said that the president of the Korean Medical Association attended the healthcare policy meeting but left early to boycott the vote confirming the size of the admission increases.
The KMA president, Kim Taek-woo, later said the increases would overwhelm medical schools when combined with students returning from strikes or mandatory military service, and warned that the government would be “fully responsible for all confusion that emerges in the medical sector going forward.” The group didn’t immediately signal plans for further walkouts.
Health Minister Jeong Eun Kyeong said the annual medical school admissions cap will increase from the current 3,058 to 3,548 in 2027, with further hikes planned in subsequent years to reach 3,871 by 2031. This represents an average increase of 668 students per year over the five-year period, far smaller than the 2,000-per-year hike initially proposed by the government of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which sparked the months long strike by thousands of doctors.
Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs, which aim to increase the number of doctors in small towns and rural areas that have been hit hardest by demographic pressures. The specific admissions quota for each medical school will be finalized in April.
