WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul on restoring some of their embassy operations that have been drastically scaled back following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the US State Department said.
The talks, the second of their kind, come after President Donald Trump reached out to Russia following the start of his second term and offered better ties if it winds down fighting in Ukraine.
The two sides will “try to make progress on further stabilizing the operations of our bilateral missions,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday.
“There are no political or security issues on the agenda, and Ukraine is not — absolutely not — on the agenda,” she said.
“These talks are solely focused on our embassy operations, not on normalizing a bilateral relationship.”
The talks are going ahead despite Russia rejecting a Ukraine-backed US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday lamented the lack of a US response.
Trump a day later told reporters that he was not happy that Russia was “bombing like crazy right now.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously said that it is important for both the United States and Russia to resume higher staffing at their respective embassies to improve contacts, regardless of the situation in Ukraine.
US, Russia to meet Thursday in Istanbul on restoring embassy operations
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US, Russia to meet Thursday in Istanbul on restoring embassy operations
- State Department says the two sides will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul
Sudanese man jailed in UK for murdering asylum hotel worker
- Deng Chol Majek followed Rhiannon Whyte, 27, to a railway station in October 2024
- He stabbed her 23 times to the head, chest and arm with a screwdriver
LONDON: A Sudanese asylum seeker was jailed on Friday for a minimum of 29 years for murdering a woman who worked at the hotel in central England where he and other migrants were being housed.
Anti-immigration activists have seized on other criminal cases involving asylum seekers, predominantly young men, in hotels to argue that they are a danger to nearby communities.
Last summer, a number of protests at asylum hotels across England – sparked by the arrest of an Ethiopian asylum seeker for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman – turned violent.
The Labour government, nervous of the rise of the anti-immigration Reform UK party in opinion polls, has promised to clamp down on illegal immigration and, by 2029, to stop placing asylum seekers in hotels while their cases are processed.
Deng Chol Majek followed Rhiannon Whyte, 27, to a railway station in October 2024 after she finished her shift.
He stabbed her 23 times to the head, chest and arm with a screwdriver. She died in hospital three days later.
Majek was convicted in October and sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment with a minimum of 29 years at Coventry Crown Court, where some anti-immigration protesters gathered outside for the hearing.
Judge Michael Soole said the murder was “particularly vicious” and told Majek there had been a “chilling composure in every aspect of your behavior.”
