OREANDA-NEWS The US administration has extended invitations to the November summit in San Francisco (California) to all participants of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), including Russia. This was stated on Monday at a briefing by Matt Murray, a senior US official at APEC. "The United States invited all participating economies to the leaders' meeting," he replied to a question from TASS about whether the Russian side was invited to the summit. Murray added that the US intends to act as a host "in accordance with the spirit and principles of APEC, as well as in accordance with US laws and regulations." "And as far as US laws and regulations are concerned, this also includes taking into account sanctions," Murray added.

"The commitment we made when we offered to host [numerous APEC meetings and summit] in 2023 was that we would act as hosts of the meetings, relying both on the spirit and principles of APEC and on American laws and regulations," the State Department official said. "And as for the laws and regulations of the United States, this also includes taking into account sanctions. So, I repeat, we have been discussing the proper representation [of other parties at the upcoming APEC summit]. And we ended up at the current point, going [to a meeting] in San Francisco," Murray said.

He avoided a direct answer to a request to clarify how the United States would react to the use of the same approaches by other APEC participants on the principle of reciprocity, that is, taking into account its own national sanctions and similar decisions against Washington and certain American officials when sending invitations to forum meetings. "I can only talk about what we are doing in the year of the APEC presidency, and about the commitment we have made. And we believe that we have fulfilled this obligation," the diplomat said.