Washington is strongly reluctant to accept the results of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said, addressing a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club on Friday.
"We expected Washington’s reaction to the summit to be mixed. However, I did not expect such a strong reluctance to accept anything the two presidents had discussed,” TASS reported quoting Antonov.
"Shortly after the two presidents’ joint press conference was over, I started getting text messages from the Russian embassy in Washington - my colleagues were monitoring the US media - about a tough reaction to the talks," Antonov noted.
At the last summit, Russian and US leaders discussed concrete proposals for settling the situation in the Donbass, the diplomat noted accusing the Ukrainian authorities of failing to honour the agreements.
“If all the countries support the Minsk agreements then they need to be observed,” he said.
According to diplomat, the US lawmakers plan to visit Russia again.
"Another colleague plans to visit," he said adding: "I do not want to disclose their names yet.”
According to Antonov, Russian parliamentarians delegation’s visit to the US before the November midterm elections in the Congress is unlikely.
The US is trying to influence other countries to abandon military-technical cooperation with Russia and purchase Russian weapons, Antonov added.
"It's not a secret that the US State Department sent telegrams to all embassies abroad a while ago about stopping all countries from military-technical cooperation with us,” Antonov said, adding: “Look, what kind of talks are going on regarding the Russian-Turkish deal for the supply of systems. Similar heated discussions are taking place with regard to other important buyers of Russian weapons.”
The first full-fledged talks between the presidents of Russia and the US took place in Helsinki on July 16. The one-on-one meeting between Putin and Trump lasted more than two hours