ISTANBUL

President Vladimir Putin conveyed Russia's readiness to continue direct peace talks with Ukraine during his latest phone call with US counterpart Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

“President Putin received the call of President Trump after that meeting, and he clearly stated that we are ready to continue the negotiations, direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, which started in Istanbul and already had three rounds convened there,” Lavrov said in an interview with NBC News aired Sunday.

Lavrov was referring to a phone call between the two leaders following a meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and some European leaders.

The meeting in Washington, DC came after Putin and Trump held a key summit in Alaska on Aug. 15, which Lavrov said did not touch on the topic of a future meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, but was "raised later as something which is kind of impromptu."

Lavrov said Putin conveyed to Trump that potential high-level meetings, especially such as the one between Putin and Zelenskyy, must be “very well prepared.”

“And for this, we suggested to raise the level of delegations who were meeting and will be meeting in Istanbul to address specific issues which need to be brought to the attention of President Putin and Zelenskyy,” Lavrov added.

He said Moscow has not yet received a response from Kyiv on its proposal during the latest talks in the Turkish metropolis to create three working groups, each of them addressing different subject areas.

According to Lavrov, both the Russian and US presidents want to establish peace in Ukraine, and accused European officials of the opposite, citing reactions following the summit in Alaska.

He added that the issue of security guarantees being discussed around the topic of a Ukrainian settlement “must be subject to consensus.”

Istanbul has hosted three rounds of renewed peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv – on May 16, June 2, and July 23 – which produced major prisoner swaps and led to an exchange of draft memoranda outlining positions of both sides for a potential peace deal.