British Foreign Secretary Johnson to visit Moscow

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

U.K.’s Foreign Secretary will visit Moscow in a few weeks to hold talks on UK-Russia relationship, Syria and Ukraine, a foreign office statement said Saturday.

An FCO spokeswoman said Boris Johnson “has accepted an invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Moscow.”

The Foreign Office statement added that U.K.’s “policy towards Russia is to ‘engage but beware’ and the visit is entirely consistent with this approach.”

“Discussions will focus on the UK-Russia relationship and current international issues including Syria and Ukraine, where we continue to have significant differences,” it said.

The statement underlined that the visit will not mean to signal normalizing relations with Russia but differences will continue to be expressed by Johnson.

“This is not a return to business as usual and the Foreign Secretary will continue to be robust on those issues where we differ,” the statement said.

It said: “We have always been clear that the U.K. will engage with Russia where it is in our national interest to do so.”

The Foreign Office also said the timing of the visit will be announced later.