Kerry arrives in Russia to meet Putin over Ukraine
US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Russia to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin over a range of issues, including the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
Kerry, who arrived in the Russian resort of Sochi on Tuesday, is scheduled to meet Putin to ensure that the "next steps in concrete implementation" of the ceasefire deal are taken, according to a senior US official.
“We obviously wanted to make sure that if he was going to make the trip he’d get a chance to talk to the main decision maker,” the senior State Department official told reporters on the visit.
He added "We have a lot of business we could do together if there is interest," as Kerry has also planned to discuss a number of other issues, including the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya as well as the ongoing nuclear talks between the P5+1 and Iran over its nuclear program.
Kerry will first meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then will talk with Putin during his visit, which primarily aims to ease the badly strained relations between Moscow and Washington over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the visit as "extremely positive," saying Kerry's meeting with Putin would start with US-Russian mutual ties and continue over other global "hot-button issues".
"Through dialogue we can search for a path towards some sort of normalization of ties and closer coordination in solving international problems," said Peskov.
Kerry’s trip marks the highest-level visit by a US official to Russia since the US top diplomat traveled to Moscow in May 2013.
Relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated last year after pro-Western forces ousted Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
The US accuses Russia of providing heavy weaponry and training pro-Russian fighters and of deploying air defense systems in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin denounces the accusations as baseless.
Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014 and formally applied to become part of Russia following a referendum a day earlier, in which 96.8 percent of participants voted in favor of the secession. The voter turnout in the referendum stood at 83.1 percent.
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