Russia's Siluanov visits Saudi Arabia ahead of Russia-US talks

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov visited Saudi Arabia on Sunday ahead talks between Russia and the United States in the Kingdom scheduled for next week.

Siluanov was speaking at an event called AlUla Conference for Emerging Market Economies, organised by the Saudi Ministry of Finance and the International Monetary Fund.

U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to start talks aimed at ending the nearly three-year war in Ukraine, a U.S. lawmaker and a source familiar with the planning said on Saturday.

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov had held talks with President of United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on February 15 in the United Arab Emirates.

Siluanov and the central bank's governor Elvira Nabiullina also met UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, alongside Manturov, according to the Russian government's statement.

Speaking at an event in Saudi Arabia, Siluanov highlighted Russia's willingness to restructure the debt of foreign countries.

"During the last 25 years we restructured debt of 22 countries for the amount of almost $30 billion. A similar amount we had restructured through bilateral agreements," Siluanov said. (This Feb. 16 story has been corrected to clarify the date of the meetings as February 15 in paragraph 4, and to say that the Russian finance minister and central bank governor took part in a meeting with UAE vice president in paragraph 5)