US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that he had a 'frank, important' conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the ASEAN Summit.
He told reporters, " it was a frank conversation. It was an important one. We had it, and we talked about some other items as well, related to the war in Ukraine. But that was obviously the first and foremost topic that we discussed."
"Our strategy is to continue to engage all the parties that are involved in finding an outcome to this conflict. We will engage any time that we have an opportunity to do so, like we did today. I echoed what the president has said—both a disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks or in a path forward. So we’ll continue to engage. We shared some ideas and comments, which I’ll take back to Washington as early as this evening in terms of calls and reflected, and perhaps there's something to build on there. But it was a frank conversation. It was an important one. We had it, and we talked about some other items as well, related to the war in Ukraine. But that was obviously the first and foremost topic that we discussed", Rubio told reporters.