Tillerson's Moscow talks hinge on new USA leverage over Syria.
But in a Fox Business Network interview, the US president said he wouldn't intervene militarily against Assad unless the Syrian leader resorts to using weapons of mass destruction again. President Trump is invoking the Syrian government's killing of helpless men, women, and children - lovely babies, as he says - when his own Muslim travel ban would exclude those very people from the refuge of the United States.
Syria and North Korea are two main subjects of talks between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow Wednesday, as the diplomats try to fix a relationship that President Vladimir Putin says has only gotten worse in recent months.
"One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated", Putin said in an interview broadcast on Russian television moments after Tillerson sat down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an ornate hall. The US scoops up such a large volume of communications intercepts in areas like Syria and Iraq, the material often is not processed unless there is a particular event that requires analysts to go back and look for supporting intelligence material. Moscow has strongly objected to a U.S. strike against the Syrian air base the West believes the sarin attack was launched from.
It came days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping held his first meeting with President Donald Trump at a summit in Florida last week.
The Interfax news agency quotes Putin as saying that the relationship between Russian Federation and the US has deteriorated rather than improved under President Trump's administration.
Only weeks ago, it appeared that Trump, who praised Putin throughout the United States election campaign, was poised for a potentially historic rapprochement with Russian Federation.
The news conference came after Lavrov issued a warning to Tillerson, Wednesday against any further U.S. strikes on the Syrian regime.
"It would be wonderful, as we were discussing just a little while ago, if North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and our country could get along with Russian Federation".
Trump and lawmakers on Syria, jobs, court
North Korea has pledged to bolster its defenses to protect against such airstrikes. -China trade more balanced. It has conducted five nuclear tests -two since the beginning of last year-and scores of missile tests.
In his opening remarks, Tillerson said he was looking forward to "an open, candid, frank exchange" with Lavrov. Tillerson said the USA was "quite confident" that it "was planned and it was directed and executed by Syrian regime forces".
The United States is prepared to "do more" if necessary in Syria, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday.
Lavrov also noted that many key State Department posts remain vacant since the new administration took office - a point of sensitivity in Washington.
Putin has now found himself in a trap: Abandoning Assad would amount to recognition that the Kremlin's policy was wrong, while maintaining support for the Syrian ruler could risk destroying any chance for a detente with the USA and raise the threat of a military confrontation.
Putin hasn't lost hope of making a "grand deal" with Trump, but the Russian leader's unflinching support for Damascus indicates that he doesn't see dumping Assad as part of it.
But some senior officials in the Trump administration, including Haley, now say that Assad must go.
Trump administration officials, including the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, have gone even further, suggesting that Russian Federation was in some way complicit in the attack, not just in the coverup that followed. It's unclear whether Putin will grant Tillerson a meeting. Moscow also insists that Syria has no chemical weapons - including sarin, a nerve agent outlawed by global law.
Lavrov blasted USA claims that it has "irrefutable evidence" of election interference. Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates offers the crucial caveat: "There's merit in getting Russia off balance politically, but being militarily unpredictable when Russian forces are directly involved is a very risky business".
"I hope that this behavior by Syria, in what clearly is cooperation with Russian Federation and Syria together, will never happen again, " he said.
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