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Russian envoy to US suggests reestablishing military, intelligence contacts

Anatoly I. Antonov is a career diplomat and an arms control expert.

Moscow’s new ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has called for the resumption of direct contacts between Russian and US foreign and defense ministries, which were suspended in 2014 amid tensions over the crisis in Ukraine.

“The time has come to resume joint meetings of Russia’s and the United States’ foreign and defense ministers in a ‘two plus two’ format,” Antonov said in an interview published on the Kommersant business daily’s website.

Antonov also called for meetings between the heads of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency.

A “working cooperation” between Russia’s Security Council and the US National Security Council could also help fight terrorism, cyber threats and help strategic stability, he said.

Earlier this month, Antonov replaced Sergey Kislyak, a longstanding ambassador to the US who had turned into a major figure in the Washington-Moscow row on alleged Russian influence over the 2016 US presidential elections.

During his final year in office, Kislyak had come under spotlight in US media over his contacts with several officials in the Trump administration.

Ties between Russia and the Western states, particularly the US, strained in 2014, when the Crimean Peninsula decided in a 2014 referendum to separate from Ukraine and rejoin the Russian Federation.

Angered by what they called the Russian “annexation” of the region, the US and the European Union slapped a host of sanctions against Moscow over its alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict. The Kremlin, however, denies any involvement.

Antonov is expected to have a tough job ahead as Washington and Moscow are currently locked in a severe diplomatic spat over what is claimed to be Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

In late 2016, the former US president, Barack Obama, expelled 35 Russian officials from the US and seized two pieces of property belonging to the Kremlin in response to Russia’s alleged hacking of US political groups during the presidential election, an accusation flatly denied by Moscow.

Moscow refrained from retaliating back then, but went ahead in July to slap restrictions on the American diplomatic mission in Moscow after the new US administration tightened anti-Russia bans, targeting its financial system and its energy projects, particularly those in Europe.


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