MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry will do everything it can to free Russian citizens serving prison terms in the US, but the conditions for their release are unclear at this point, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview Tuesday.
"We as an agency will do everything in order to hasten the moment when the families of Konstantin Yaroshenko and Viktor Bout will reunite when Roman Seleznyov and our other compatriots who have ended up in such a tough predicament in life would be able to return home. So far, it is unclear when and on what basis they would be able to. The options and proposals we offered the Americans, unfortunately, have garnered no response," he said.
According to the senior diplomat, it is too early to speak about any progress on this issue. He underscored that Russia would not agree to unilateral concessions on these "high-profile humanitarian cases."
"Like in many other situations, our colleagues in Washington believe, for some reason, that Russia ‘owes’ them something, that we will agree to some unilateral concessions. I can tell you that the experience of any unilateral actions without cementing obligatory reciprocal steps from the US has been extremely negative, and should not be repeated in this case," Ryabkov said.
On June 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden met in Geneva. After the summit, Putin stated that Russia and the US could find certain compromises on the repatriation of Russian nationals sentenced in the US and American citizens doing time in Russia. The head of state noted that foreign policy agencies would work in this direction.
