Tillerson said Syria's government had committed more than 50 attacks using chlorine or other chemical weapons over the duration of the conflict.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said Russia had lots of questions about the Trump administration's "very ambiguous" and "contradictory" ideas.
But amid the recent mutual recriminations over Syria, Tillerson demanded that Russian Federation end its support of the Syrian regime following the April 4 chemical weapons attack in the town of Khan Shaykhun.
Tillerson said he wanted "a very open, candid and frank exchange" as the two men try to figure each other out during the first visit to Russian Federation by a senior member of US President Donald Trump's administration.
Trumps comments come less than a week after he ordered missile strikes on a Syrian airfield after USA evidence indicated that Assad killed civilians using the nerve agent sarin.
Tillerson started a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin after talking to his Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov for around three hours. "With respect to Russia's complicity or knowledge in the chemical attack", the attack was conducted exclusively by the Assad regime forces, Tillerson said, adding that the United States has no reason to believe Moscow aided and embedded the attack in Idlib.
"And frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person".
"The working level of confidence in Russian-American relations, especially at the military level, under the administration of Donald Trump has not improved, but rather worsened", he told MIR. We're nearly finished and I - what does he do, finish his dessert and go home and then they say, you know, the guy you just had dinner with just attacked a country?
A reported April 4 toxic gas attack in Syria's rebel-held Idlib Province in northwestern Syria killed at least 70 civilians and wounded scores of others.
The pair could meet with Putin later today, state-run Tass reports, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying there's a "certain possibility" that Putin might receive Tillerson and Lavrov. Pointing to the veto Moscow has used more than a half-dozen times to stymie the U.N. Security Council's efforts to staunch the Syrian bloodshed, Freeland said: "What is very important is that the worldwide community can not be paralyzed by that Russian Federation veto".
South African opposition protests Zuma, who celebrates 75th
Zuma is making [matters] worse; at least it's uniting us. "He's the main leader and he doesn't lead by example", she said. He replaced the five ministers he sacked - one white, one Indian, one brown and two black - with five black ministers.
"Russia is not wedded to Assad in the same way that Iran is and may, therefore, be more amenable toward brokering a deal so long as its key strategic assets in Syria remain untouched", Arterbury said. "If the regime is innocent, as Russian Federation claims, the information requested in this resolution would have vindicated them", she said. Trump said Tillerson had completed a successful meeting with Putin, where "things went pretty well". But Peskov too did not hold back his criticism, saying calls from Western powers for Russian Federation to cut support for Assad amounted to giving terrorists a free hand.
Diplomats gathered in Italy as United States officials in Washington floated the possibility of new sanctions on the Syrian and Russian military, plus the threat of additional U.S. military action if Assad's government continues attacking civilians. "If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you can - you will see a response from this president". Russia, Assad's staunchest ally, has insisted that Assad is blameless and that it was actually the rebels responsible for the disbursed chemical weapons. US spending, too, has tapered off in recent years.
President Trump shared a story with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Wednesday morning, and it's a story he says others have been begging to get their hands on.
But on Monday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the site of a World War Two Nazi massacre in Italy and said Washington would never let such abuses go unchallenged.
"You pick and choose your battles", said United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, five days before the gas attack.
"I think the. longer term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people", he said.
But after last week's chemical weapons attack, the administration was more critical of Russia's role in propping up Assad. Conflicts over Russia's actions in Ukraine and Russia's alleged interference in the USA presidential campaign were also likely topics.
Putting aside the fact that Trump just ignored his own rule about discussing his future security plans, his declaration that "we're not going into Syria" is problematic because we're already in Syria.
Tillerson is on a thus-far-futile mission to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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