Moscow (AFP)

The time has come to put an end to the mistrust with Russia, the French Foreign and Defense Ministers said in Moscow on Monday during talks with their Russian counterparts, against a background of appeasement of relations advocated by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Jean-Yves Le Drian and Florence Parly have found Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in the "2 + 2" format, a first since 2012 but especially since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which plunged the world into a Cold War atmosphere.

"The time has come, the moment is propitious to work to reduce the mistrust" with Russia, launched Mr. Le Drian at the end of this meeting to four, following the French president who has multiplied the gestures of opening to Moscow in recent weeks.

"We came to propose (...) a new agenda of confidence," said the head of the French diplomacy.

Relations between the EU and Russia, targeted since 2014 by heavy Western sanctions because of the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula and its role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, remain at a level very low but Emmanuel Macron undertook to breathe a climate of relaxation.

He received Vladimir Putin in August, just before the G7, in the summer residence of the French presidents of southern France. He pleads for a normalization of relations with Moscow, which he says he wants to anchor to Europe despite disagreements on several important issues.

"We do not always have the same vision," noted Florence Parly Monday, but "it is important to talk to each other, to avoid misunderstandings, friction".

"The quality of our exchanges", which, according to her, included the situation in Ukraine and the crisis in Syria, "suggests to me that we may be on the right track".

For his part, Sergei Lavrov praised from the beginning of the interview "the initiatives" of France, ensuring that a "strengthening of Russian-French cooperation on the international scene (...) fully corresponds to the position of the President Putin and the interests of Russia ".

Asked by AFP, a member of the French delegation was pleased that the Paris offer of a "dialogue on stability and security" was welcomed "positively by the two ministers" Russian. "We need dialogue with the Russians to better understand each other," the source added, citing a "long-term work" that France wants to take the initiative in "transparency and coordination" with the Europeans.

These talks in Moscow come after a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, who notably welcomed the exchange of 70 prisoners intervened the day before between Ukraine and Russia as a step towards peace.

- "window of opportunity" -

In this context, a so-called "Normandy" peace summit, which brings together German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French, Russian and Ukrainian heads of state - Volodymyr Zelensky - to seek a way out of the Ukrainian conflict, could also be organized. in September in Paris, a first for three years.

"I see that there is a window of opportunity" for peace in Ukraine, said Monday Le Drian.

"All this creates a state of mind, we must now strengthen it, fertilize it, and that is why we believe that a + Summit + Normandy + initiative would be appropriate in the coming weeks," he said. he went on to stress that it is too early to talk about lifting the economic sanctions imposed on Russia.

For his part, Lavrov described the prisoner exchange this weekend as "a good sign," hoping that "Russian-Ukrainian relations will normalize".

The major strategic issues, shaken by the questioning of arms control treaties, were on the agenda of this discussion, according to the head of the Russian diplomacy, who believes that the four ministers had a "detailed" exchange of opinions.

© 2019 AFP