US special representative for Ukraine to visit Russia soon
US special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker will soon visit Russia and meet with Vladislav Surkov, advisor to the Russian president, as stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the Philippine capital of Manila on Sunday.
“Rex Tillerson confirmed that such contact with our representative Vladislav Surkov has been planned and will take place soon,” RIA Novosti cites Lavrov as saying.
Lavrov mentioned that Volker has already visited numerous capitals, including Kyiv, Paris, Berlin and London. “We will be interested to see what kind of presentation of the current state of affairs the American special representative has put together,” the Russian minister said.
Volker was in Ukraine between July 23 and 24. Amongst other places, he visited front-line Avdiivka and Kramatorsk, and stated that in the Donbas there is not a “frozen conflict” but a “hot war”.
After Ukraine, he went to Paris in order to have discussions with the French and German representatives regarding the negotiation process in Minsk (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE) and the Normandy Format (Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany). He also visited Brussels for talks with EU and NATO representatives, Vienna for a meeting with the OSCE leadership and London for talks with the British authorities.
On July 7, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appointed former US Permanent Representative to NATO Kurt Volker as the special representative for Ukraine. He will coordinate the Department of State’s efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.
Volker is a specialist in international relations. From 1986 he worked as an analyst in the CIA and since 1988 he has worked in the US Department of State. In 1998 Volker became the first secretary of the American mission to NATO, in 2005 he became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and between 2008 and 2009 he served as the US Permanent Representative to NATO.
In recent years Volker has worked in the McCain international republican institute.