WASHINGTON (Reuters) – There are no plans for U.S. officials to meet with their Russian counterparts during the an annual gathering of world leaders in New York next week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Friday.
Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers.
Biden is due to address the U.S. General Assembly on Wednesday, she said.
There will not be meetings either concerning the Iran nuclear deal, Thomas-Greenfield told reporters. Talks about reinstating the 2015 deal have been ongoing in Vienna but U.S. officials have acknowledged an agreement in the near future is unlikely.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Doina Chiacu)
