MOSCOW — Russia has offered the United States to restore direct air links between the two countries during the latest round of consultations with Washington, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalizing the operation of their respective embassies that has been crippled by multiple round of diplomats’ expulsions during previous years.

The Russian Foreign Ministry hailed the talks as “substantive and businesslike” and noted in a statement that “joint steps were agreed upon to ensure unimpeded financing of the activities of diplomatic missions of Russia and the United States on a reciprocal basis and to create appropriate conditions for diplomats to perform their official duties.”

The ministry said that it also offered the U.S. “to consider the possibility of restoring direct air traffic.” It didn’t add any details or possible time frame, and there was no immediate comment from Washington on the issue.

U.S. and other Western nations cut air links with Russia as part of a slew of sanctions imposed on Moscow after it sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

The U.S.-Russia talks in Istanbul followed an understanding reached during U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and negotiations between senior Russian and U.S. diplomats and other officials in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

In Riyadh, Moscow and Washington agreed to start working toward ending the fighting in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. That includes restoring staffing at embassies, which in recent years were hit hard by mutual expulsions of large numbers of diplomats, closures of offices and other restrictions.

The U.S. State Department said that during Thursday’s talks in Istanbul, the U.S. delegation “raised concerns regarding access to banking and contracted services as well as the need to ensure stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”

“Through constructive discussions, both sides identified concrete initial steps to stabilize bilateral mission operations in these areas,” it said in a statement.

Sonata Coulter, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Russia and Central Europe who led the U.S. delegation, and Alexander Darchiyev, the head of the North America department of the Russian Foreign Ministry who headed Moscow’s team of negotiators, “agreed to hold a follow-up meeting on these issues in the near term,” the U.S. State Department said.

Putin on Thursday hailed the Trump administration’s “pragmatism and realistic view” compared with what he described as the “stereotypes and messianic ideological cliches” of its predecessors.

“The first contacts with the new U.S. administration encourage certain hopes,” Putin said. “There is a mutual readiness to work to restore relations and gradually solve a colossal amount of systemic strategic problems in the global architecture.”

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday criticized the United States and Asian neighbors for pursuing the “absurd” goal of denuclearizing the North and said it will push to expand its nuclear forces under the direction of its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.

The statement by Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry came after the top diplomats of the U.S., South Korea and Japan met at a security conference in Germany and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening military cooperation and reinforcing an international sanctions regime to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

The North Korean ministry accused the U.S. of trying to realize an “outdated and absurd plan” of denuclearizing the North and warned of “overwhelming and decisive counteraction” against its rivals if it perceives its security is under threat. It said the North will “consistently adhere to the new line of bolstering the nuclear force” established by Kim and “thoroughly deter the U.S. and its vassal forces” from threats and blackmail against the North’s sovereignty.

It was the latest North Korean statement accusing the U.S. of maintaining hostile policies against Pyongyang, though state media has so far avoided directly naming U.S. President Donald Trump, who, during his first term, engaged in unprecedented summits with the North Korean leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Mark Rubio held a three-way meeting with the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers in Munich, Germany, on Saturday and reaffirmed their commitment to the North’s “complete denuclearization” and maintaining an effective sanctions regime targeting the country’s weapons program. The countries also agreed to bolster defense and deterrence, including by expanding three-way military exercises and strengthening Japan and South Korea’s military capabilities, according to a joint statement released after the meeting.

Trump and Kim met three times in 2018 and 2019 during Trump’s first term, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements about exchanging the release of U.S.-led sanctions for North Korean steps to wind down its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea has since suspended any meaningful talks with Washington and Seoul as Kim ramped up his testing activity and military demonstrations to counter what he portrayed as “gangster-like U.S. threats.”

Kim’s foreign policy priority is now Russia, which he has supplied with weapons and troops to help prolong Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Seoul fears that Kim may receive economic assistance and advanced technology to develop his arsenal in exchange for its military supporting Russia.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said a diplomatic delegation led by Kim Ik Song, director of the Bureau for Affairs with Diplomatic Corps, departed for Russia on Monday in the latest diplomatic activity between the countries. The agency didn’t specify what will be discussed during the meetings.

Trump’s election win has touched off speculation about a possible resumption of summit-driven diplomacy with Kim, but analysts say a quick return to 2018 is unlikely, given the significant changes in the regional security situation and broader geopolitics since then.

North Korea’s nuclear program is no longer an independent issue but connected with broader challenges created by Russia’s war on Ukraine and further complicated by weakened sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang.

Kim’s efforts to boost North Korea’s presence in a united front against Washington could also gain strength if Trump’s efforts to increase tariffs and reset global trade rekindles a trade war with China, the North’s main ally and economic lifeline, according to some experts.

BANGKOK — China has slammed a decision by the U.S. Treasury to sanction a Beijing-based cybersecurity company for its alleged role in multiple hacking incidents targeting critical U.S. infrastructure.

Asked about the sanctions against Beijing-based Integrity Technology Group, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the country has cracked down on cyber attacks and that Washington was using the issue to “defame and smear China.”

“For some time now, the U.S. side has been playing up so-called Chinese cyber attacks and has even initiated illegal unilateral sanctions against China,” said Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson. “China firmly opposes this and will take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”

Integrity Technology Group said the move by Washington had “no factual basis.”

“The company firmly opposes the U.S. Treasury Department’s unwarranted accusations and Illegal unilateral sanctions on the company,” the company, also known as Yongxin Zhicheng Technology Group, said in a statement Monday to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

On Friday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control hit Integrity Technology with sanctions that block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans. It cited alleged multiple hacks against U.S. victims, including incidents attributed to Flax Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored campaign that targets U.S. critical infrastructure.

The sanctions did not appear to be related to an incident in which the Treasury Department reported that Chinese hackers had remotely accessed several of its workstations and unclassified documents in a major breach of cybersecurity.

The Treasury Department said it learned of that problem on Dec. 8, when a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, flagged that hackers had stolen a key “used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support” to workers.

U.S. officials are grappling with the fallout from a massive Chinese cyberespionage blitz known as Salt Typhoon that they say gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.

Late last month, officials said at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by Salt Typhoon.

Integrity Technology said the sanctions would not adversely affect its business since it does not operate in the U.S. and has no assets there. It added that it abides by all laws and regulations and that it “has always adhered to the corporate vision and mission of bringing a sense of security to the world.”