Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a “constructive” phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has said.
The top diplomats compared notes on “the current state of international affairs and Russia-US relations” and discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts, the ministry said in a statement.
The conversation was “constructive and businesslike,” it added.
The US State Department has not yet commented.
The Lavrov-Rubio call – their first in more than six months – came less than a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with his US counterpart Donald Trump. The two discussed the ceasefire in the Iran war, potential escalation in the region, as well as the Ukraine conflict, according to the Kremlin.
The call was part of broader renewed contacts initiated by Trump since his return to office last year, after years of frozen relations during the Joe Biden presidency. The US president also launched a diplomatic push to settle the Ukraine conflict.
However, three rounds of Washington-mediated direct negotiations between Moscow and Kiev brought no breakthroughs, and talks appear to have stalled amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.