Russian and US diplomats met in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalising the operation of their respective embassies after years expelling each others’ diplomats. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks followed an understanding reached during US President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and contact between senior Russian and US diplomats and other officials in Saudi Arabia.

Speaking during Thursday’s meeting of the Federal Security Service, Putin hailed the Trump administration’s “pragmatism and realistic view” compared with what he described as the “stereotypes and messianic ideological clichés” of its predecessors. “The first contacts with the new US administration encourage certain hopes,” Putin said.  “There is a mutual readiness to work to restore relations and gradually solve a colossal amount of systemic strategic problems in the global architecture.”