Photo credit: Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0 / wikipedia.org
The Fort Ross Dialogue Forum International Forum started on Tuesday, December 1, TASS reports. This year it is being held online.
The Russian-American conference has long become an annual tradition. It is attended by politicians, cultural figures, experts in various fields, journalists, political scientists from both countries. Within the framework of the forum, discussions and seminars are held on the main issues of the bilateral agenda, issues of the economy, as well as interaction in various fields are discussed.
Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the United States, spoke at the opening of the forum. According to him, Moscow is always ready to start a constructive dialogue with Washington. He called several previous years "a time of missed opportunities." In the absence of dialogue, bilateral relations have turned into a vicious circle of sanctions and counter-sanctions.
But Russia is ready to overcome the existing differences, the diplomat is sure. He recalled that the Russian authorities had more than once come forward with proposals for projects to restore pragmatic interaction.
The head of the Russian diplomatic mission also expressed the hope that the topic of the so-called Russian threat would no longer be used in Washington in order to earn a few political points. He explained that manifestations of "rabid Russophobia" are clearly visible in the United States, but the dialogue was still going on.
Stabilization of bilateral relations is quite possible, the ambassador is sure, for this it is necessary to make some efforts. This includes developing cooperation in the economic and trade spheres, deepening exchanges in science, education and culture, expanding direct contacts between Russian and American regions.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryabkov also spoke at the forum. He called on the United States and its allies to join the moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range missiles proposed earlier by Moscow.
Fort Ross is a former Russian settlement and fortress that currently has the status of a California State Historical Park and a national landmark. The fort, located on the steep and precipitous Pacific coast, was founded at the beginning of the 19th century by Ivan Kuskov, a tradesman from the county town of Totma, Vologda province.
