WASHINGTON, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – Top US and Russian officials will meet here Friday to discuss the fate of intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and a range of other issues, the State Department said Tuesday.
“We have raised Mr. Snowden with Russian officials many times in recent weeks and expect to do so” again during the talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the two countries’ defense ministers, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The meeting comes amid tense relations between Washington and Moscow following Russia’s decision to grant asylum to Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States in connection with classified information about US surveillance programs he is accused of leaking.
The United States has repeatedly called on Russia to expel Snowden and assist in returning him into US custody, a position Psaki restated Tuesday despite the fugitive’s refugee status.
“We would like to see Mr. Snowden returned to the United States,” Psaki said. “I don’t know technically what that requires, but we know [the Russians] have the capability to do that.”
Russia’s decision to grant asylum to Snowden has called into question a scheduled Moscow summit between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin early next month ahead of the G20 meeting of top world leaders that begins Sept. 5 in St. Petersburg.
“We are continuing to evaluate the utility of a summit,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday of the planned Obama-Putin meeting. “You can expect we’ll have a decision to announce in the coming days about that,” Carney said.
The senior-level meeting in Washington on Friday will be the first of the so-called “two-plus-two” talks held between the two countries since 2007, Psaki told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
In addition to the expected talks concerning Snowden, the officials “will discuss a number of pressing bilateral and global issues, including strategic stability, political-military cooperation and military issues,” Psaki said.
The ongoing civil war in Syria will also “certainly” be on the agenda, Psaki said, as will the ratification and implementation of the New START arms-reduction treaty, the transit of personnel and materiel to and from Afghanistan, “and working together to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” she added.
Russia and the United States have been at loggerheads over the Syria conflict, with Moscow rejecting Washington’s insistence that any political resolution preclude Syrian President Bashar Assad from remaining in power.
Russia has also said that planned US military aid to Syrian rebels may lead to further escalation of violence in the country and that such support could lead to extreme Islamist elements in the Syrian opposition seizing power in the country.
“We certainly have our share of disagreements with Russia over a number of issues, and I’m sure they will be part of the conversation as well,” Psaki said.
