Sergei Lavrov to talk with Pompeo on sidelines of meeting of Arctic Council

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold rare face-to-face talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Finland next week, TASS news agency quoted a deputy Russian foreign minister as saying on Friday.

TASS cited the deputy minister, Sergei Ryabkov, as saying the talks had been confirmed and would be held on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council due to take place in Rovaniemi on May 6-7.

The meeting - which would be only the second fully-fledged encounter between Lavrov and Pompeo - will come with U.S.-Russian relations under new strain over their differing approaches to a political crisis in Venezuela.