Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Cambodia that the Kremlin is “ready to discuss this issue, but within the framework of the channel that has been agreed upon by the presidents,” the state news agency reported news RIA Novosti.
“There is a specific channel that has been agreed upon [Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden]and no matter what anyone says publicly, this channel will remain in place,” Lavrov said at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit on Friday.
Shortly after, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the same summit that the US would “continue” talks with Russia.
“As you know, we presented a substantial proposal that Russia should cooperate with us. And what Foreign Minister Lavrov said this morning and said publicly is that they are willing to participate through the channels that we’ve set out to do that. we’re going to pursue that,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference.
Comments from each side suggest that an already complex negotiation process could accelerate in the coming days.
Russian government officials last month asked that a former colonel in the country’s national intelligence agency, who was convicted of murder in Germany last year, be included in the proposed US exchange of the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout by Griner and Paul Whelan, various known sources. with the discussions he told CNN. Whelan, a US citizen, has been detained by Russia since 2018 and was convicted by a Russian court in 2020 of espionage charges he has vigorously denied. Griner’s conviction has sparked similar concerns that he is being used as a political pawn in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The US State Department classifies the couple as wrongfully detained.
Griner, a star in the National Women’s Basketball Association, pleaded guilty to carrying cannabis oil in her luggage while traveling through a Moscow airport on February 17. He told the court he was aware of Russia’s strict drug laws and had no intention of putting cannabis in his luggage. the country, saying he was in a hurry and “stressed”.
Before Thursday’s verdict, Griner apologized to the court and asked for leniency in an emotional speech. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, I never wanted to endanger the Russian population, I never wanted to break any laws here,” he said.
“I made an honest mistake and I hope your sentence doesn’t end my life here. I know everyone is still talking about political pawn and politics, but I hope that is far from this courtroom,” he continued.
Griner’s lawyers had hoped that his guilty plea and statements of remorse would result in a more lenient sentence.
His conviction, Blinken told reporters, “puts the spotlight on him [Washington’s] very serious concern about Russia’s legal system and the Russian government’s use of unlawful detentions to advance its own agenda by using individuals as political pawns.”
“The same goes for Paul Whelan,” added Blinken.
Earlier on Friday, a US State Department official told reporters there had been no “serious response” from Russia on a proposed exchange. The same official said that Blinken and Lavrov had not met while at the Cambodia summit and that Blinken had no plans to do so.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia would not publicly discuss the prospect of a transfer. “If we talk through the press about some nuances related to the exchange, these exchanges will never take place. The Americans have already made this mistake,” he said on Friday.
Peskov, asked if Putin might pardon Griner, said that “there is a certain [legal] procedure to which the convict may appeal, in accordance with the law.” According to Russian law, to initiate clemency proceedings, a convict must write a petition to the Russian president.
Before the start of Thursday’s WNBA game between Griner’s Phoenix Mercury and the Connecticut Sun, members of both teams linked arms around center court and a 42-second moment of silence was observed for Brittney Griner.
Toward the end of those 42 seconds, crowd members began chanting, “Bring her home! Bring her home!”
This story has been updated with additional news.
CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Anna Chernova and Daniel Allman contributed to this report.