OREANDA-NEWS. February 25, 2010. A telephone conversation between Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took place at the American side’s initiative.

The sides discussed the state of affairs in the bilateral talks at Geneva on a new START treaty and exchanged views on further progress in hammering out the remaining details. They reiterated the need to focus the delegations in Geneva on strict adherence to the principled accords reached by the Russian and US Presidents and cemented at the meeting between Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen in Moscow this past January.

Lavrov and Clinton also discussed the preparations for a planned ministerial meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Moscow.