Grigory Karasin, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said the talks with the United States in Riyadh were unproductive. Still, it would be naive to expect a breakthrough.
He confirmed that the meeting discussed issues such as Russia’s access to ports, the export of agricultural products, and the integration of Rosselkhozbank into Swift. According to him, “the Americans took it calmly.”
“The main issue raised at that meeting was the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, the restoration of the possibility for our fleet to use ports to export agricultural products, and the restoration of the SWIFT system for Rosselkhozbank. This is the set of questions raised, to which the Americans took a calm attitude,” Karasin said.
Karasin added, “It is possible to work with the current US team.” He assumed that such meetings would continue and that the Russian negotiating team’s leadership would set new tasks for itself.
