Talks between Russia and Turkey on Syria

1 Syria

The ’CNN Turk TV’ reported that Russian and Turkish Defense Ministers, Sergei Shoigu and Hulusi Akar, held telephone conversations on Thursday. During the constructive negotiations, the Turkish Defense Minister reported about the violations of the ’Memorandum of Understanding on the Syrian province of Idlib’. The parties agreed to take measures. The Russian Defense Ministry reported that «the heads of the military departments discussed the situation in Syria in detail while paying attention to the interaction within the framework of a joint commission, made to consider issues related to violations of the ceasefire, as well as other topics of mutual interest».

2 The USA — Afghanistan

The chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the US House of Representatives, Adam Smith, stated that Washington won’t pull out their forces from Afghanistan by 1st of May, as required by the agreement between the administration of the former US President Donald Trump and the Taliban — the ’Reuters’ reported. Adam Smith noted that there are about 3,500 US servicemen in Afghanistan, and about 7,000 US military allies. According to him — it is impossible to pull more than 10,000 servicemen in 6 weeks. He added that ’’the number one job» for the US administration is to discuss with the Taliban the possibility of extending the presence of the US-led forces in Afghanistan for some time.

3 The USA

The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, jointly stated in a document that the Joe Biden’s team is ready to engage in the negotiations to return to the ’Joint Comprehensive Action Plan’ in order to resolve the crisis over the nuclear development of Iran. The text of the statement was published by the press service of the US State Department. The document was adopted after the talks in Brussels. «Anthony Blinken confirmed the readiness of Washington to make the diplomatic efforts to ensure the mutual return of the USA and Iran to the full implementation of the JCPOA» — the document stated. Josep Borrell and Anthony Blinken expressed their concern over the ’’on-going Iranian withdrawal from their obligations under the JCPOA».

4 Russia — The USA

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated in a review of the Russian foreign policy and diplomatic activities in 2020 that the numerous efforts of Washington to contain Russia led to the accumulation of the tensions in the relations between Russia and the USA, which included «imposing new sanctions and creating additional obstacles to the implementation of the ’’Nord Stream 2’’ and ’’Turkish Stream’’ pipeline projects in 2020». It was underlined that the interaction was limited and situational.

5 Nagorno-Karabakh

The TASS news agency reported that on Thursday the parliament of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic passed a law by a majority vote that gave the Russian language an official status. 27 MPs voted in favor of the bill, 2 abstained. It was noted that the head of the Foreign Ministry of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, David Babayan, explained that the decision to assign the official status to the Russian language was due to the fact that «the NKR considers Russia a fraternal country». The Armenian language remains the state language in the unrecognized republic.

6 Russia

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the start of the preparations for the second ’Russia-Africa’ summit. The summit is planned for 2022. The secretariat of the ’Russia-Africa partnership’ forum has begun its functioning at the Russian Foreign Ministry, under which the coordination, public and scientific councils have been created. The «Association of the Economic Cooperation with the African Countries» was established, which includes large Russian companies that operate in the African markets. «In the near future, road maps of the Russian-African cooperation in the economic, scientific and humanitarian matters will be developed» — Sergei Lavrov concluded. Constantine Reztsov, specially for the ANNA NEWS.