Russia, UK restore normal relations

Russia and the United Kingdom are experiencing a thaw in relations, with the two nations agreeing to restore regular diplomatic meetings, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday during a meeting with his British counterpart William Hague. “There is a possibility to improve the existing dialogue mechanisms, and we have decided that our deputies will regularly meet and discuss strategic issues, including military and political ones,” Lavrov said, adding that Moscow and London have signed the first Russian-British plan on bilateral consultations. Russia and the United Kingdom have not yet made progress on ways to ease the bilateral visa regime,  Lavrov said. “Meanwhile we have not progressed much in this way [to simplify visa procedures],” Lavrov said. Russia is interested in easing the visa regime with all countries, and ideally move to a visa-free regime, he added. “We have nearly a hundred agreements with countries on a visa-free regime for holders of diplomatic and service passports, as well as many dozens of cases of visa-free travel for short trips by citizens. We’re talking about a visa-free regime with the EU, with countries that are Schengen area,” Lavrov said. “We have from day to day to ratify the agreement on visa facilitation with the U.S., and will speak about the transition to a visa-free regime. I am sure that in future we will be able to talk about it with our British partners,” Lavrov added. Negotiations on visa facilitation between Russia and Britain were frozen several years ago after the case of the murdered former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London. The UK says it wanted to extradite a Russian, Andrei Lugavoi, who it suspected of involvment in Litvinenko's death, but Moscow refused to hand him over.