U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington is willing to maintain «contacts» with Russia to achieve «advancing national interests,» while advocating the release of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in a prisoner exchange aimed at bringing basketball player Brittney Griner back to the United States.
«We have demonstrated all along that despite the challenges, to put it mildly, in the relationship in general and despite the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, we are able to work on specific issues, on interests that we have, to see if we can make progress,» he has maintained in an interview granted to the U.S. television network CBS.
«During this time we have been trying to achieve the return of Americans who are unjustly detained (in Russia). There are other aspects of the relationship where we continue to have some contact, for example on arms control, and we will continue to do that as long as it is necessary to advance U.S. national interests,» he explained.
Blinken said Griner’s release is «a good day» and argued that «what you do every day seems like an abstraction, but this is a reminder that at the end of the day, these are real people, real lives, and real futures. «It’s wonderful that Brittney and Cherelle (the basketballer’s wife) can get on with their lives now that she’s free and coming home,» he has argued.
However, he has acknowledged that he would have liked to have also secured the release of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison for espionage. «We have been doing everything possible to get him out,» said Blinken, who promised that Washington «will not stop until Paul is back home».
«We are working around the world, and also in Russia, to get every unjustly detained American back home. We have been doing that every day since the beginning of this Administration. The (U.S.) President (Joe Biden) has, on many things, made tough decisions necessary to get them home. We are making them. I will not rest until we get as many people back as possible,» he said.
