FOREIGN POLICY/INTELLIGENCE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Russia and the Trump administration are still at odds after a high-level meeting over the United States’ returning two diplomatic compounds to Russian control, a Kremlin official said today, while the United States was mum on the issue.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met Monday [7-17-17] evening with U.S. Under Secretary of State Tom Shannon in Washington — the highest level meeting since the two countries’ presidents, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, met at the G-20 summit in Germany this month — as the Trump administration faces intense pressure from Russia on one side and the U.S. Congress on the other over the fate of the two compounds, or dachas, in New York and Maryland.
‘It would be an exaggeration to say that we are on the verge of finding a solution and resolving this situation,’ Ryabkov told Russian news agency TASS today, adding that the meeting ‘went off predictably’ and that the two sides came up with ‘a number of ideas on how to achieve a visible and tangible improvement in relations.’
After leaving the meeting, Ryabkov responded to a shouted question about whether the two countries are close to a deal on the Russian compounds with a smile, saying, ‘Almost, almost.’ “
-Conor Finnegan, “Russians leave meeting without their seized US compounds,” ABC News, July 18, 2017 11:51am